


To Luck

by deependlittleocean



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Dex is the exact opposite and as expected real salty about it, M/M, Nursey is somehow super lucky even though he's clumsy as hell, a little bit of angst but mostly happy, deep conversations while sharing a bed, featuring New York City, super vague mention of Dex's not fun family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deependlittleocean/pseuds/deependlittleocean
Summary: Nursey wouldn’t say that it happened often, but it happened with enough frequency that it was something he started to notice his Sophomore year at Andover. It wasn’t really a thing. He figured he just happened to be one of those people who was in the right place at the right time. Or when he wrote his name down on those slips of paper for raffles, there must not have been too many other people who had done the same. Maybe he had done something amazing, totally excellent, in a past life and now this was the cosmos way of repaying him in this life. Or something. Besides he didn’t really prescribe to the idea that someone could be lucky.





	To Luck

**Author's Note:**

> I am so so so happy to finally be posting this after sitting on it for about a month! This was a labor of love and I really really hope you all like it.

Nursey wouldn’t say that it happened often, but it happened with enough frequency that it was something he started to notice his Sophomore year at Andover. It wasn’t really a thing. He figured he just happened to be one of those people who was in the right place at the right time. Or when he wrote his name down on those slips of paper for raffles, there must not have been too many other people who had done the same. Maybe he had done something amazing, totally excellent, in a past life and now this was the cosmos way of repaying him in this life. Or something. Besides he didn’t really prescribe to the idea that someone could be lucky.

Sure he always seemed to be winning those ‘write your name on this tiny rectangle of paper for a week’s worth of this!’ mom and pop shop giveaways, and then there were the four or five radio call-ins he’d somehow won in high school, and he did do one of those ‘win tickets to this game!’ things once that he’d gotten an email about three weeks later saying “Congratulations!” But it wasn’t a thing. It totally, honestly wasn’t a thing. Which he had told his teammates at Andover over and over and over. To which they hadn’t gotten the hint and bugged him about it over and over and over.

Then it really had become a thing. Something his teammates ribbed him about at every opportunity. And while it wasn’t anything that was worse than mild teasing the frequent requests from multiple teammates to enter this giveaway or that call in, it had started to really lose its comedic edge by his senior year. So his relief was palpable when he finally was released from the hellscape that was Andover and slipped into Samwell without anyone knowing about that particular part of his life, aside from Shitty, who really hadn’t put much stock in the whole thing to begin with and was graduated now anyways.

He had gotten almost to the second half of his sophomore year without anyone catching wind of his supposed gift of luck. His whole freshman year was nothing but mediocrity when it came to anything that could potentially be seen as constant good luck. Especially since his new team had been present for too many to count instances where he had fallen over this, or tripped over that, or hit this person with his hockey bag on accident, or spilled his milk all over Dex for the fourth time. Suffice to say, he thought he was finally in the clear as far as being hounded about his supposed luckiness. And while he had been totally cool with it, sometimes it had its benefits, the cosmos or whatever had given it to him in the first place, was being a total dick now.

***

The first time It happens at Samwell, Nursey is doing his usual morning run which means it’s actually the 11am to 1pm slot of time he doesn’t have any classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It sort of happens on accident (he refuses to say by luck.) He’s running and something suddenly jogs his memory about the fact that Lardo’s birthday is fast approaching and he has yet to get her something.

Which is a problem because Lardo deserves a lot of somethings, and she’s coming back with Holster and Ransom for her birthday weekend which means he needs something before then. She deserves the best somethings. So he’s thinking about this suddenly as he runs down main street Samwell, focusing on the rhythmic thump of his feet hitting old and kitchy bricked sidewalk of downtown, when he sees it. Prizm is an old family owned art store, and he’s passed it countless times on his running route but for some reason has yet to be inside. The window display isn’t anything spectacular or eye catching, just a showing of some of their newer merchandise. What catches Nursey’s eye though is the sign at the bottom left corner.

Mulling it over for a few seconds he decides what the hell, there isn’t any harm, especially since no one is going to find out anyways. Nursey spends a few minutes mulling around the shop, flitting from one area to another every couple of minutes. While he adores art, loves to help Lardo with whatever she needs, and could spend countless hours in art museums, he’s not an artist himself so his interest doesn’t go past casual. Until he gets to the little wooden bench towards the back of the store, which is why he’s here in the first place.

Sitting smack dab in the middle is a large wicker basket stuffed to the brim of art supplies. He’s not exactly sure what Lardo uses, what she prefers and what’s up to academic standards, but he does notice a few of the same Copic markers Lardo has strewn all about her room. Notices a few sketch pads that are bound in genuine leather, paint brushes that are labeled as non-synthetic, and a few packages of other things that Nursey isn’t sure of their purpose. All he knows is that Lardo would probably love it which seals his decision.

He grabs a Moleskine that had caught his eye on the way in, he’s close to filling up his last one, and heads to the front counter. The girl standing behind the counter is drawing with a pencil on the back of an old receipt and she looks up when he stops in front of the register. Nursey gives her the most charming smile he can muster and slides the Moleskine across the counter for her to scan.

“Are you an art student at Samwell?” She asks, turning the notebook over to scan.

“Nah, English.”

She just hums, an acknowledgment that she heard him, “Well, even so, we’re having this giveaway right now for Samwell students. A whole bunch of the fancy art supplies the Fine Arts students are always lugging around campus. You might as well enter.” She places his journal in a paper bag and reads his total to him.

“Yeah? That’s chill.” Nursey immediately hears Dex’s voice in his head, repeating the word in an eerily serious tone of voice.

“Yeah, here’s a paper. You just write your name and number and you have to have a valid Samwell email,” she slides a piece of paper over in front of him and passes him a pen. He starts to fill it out, “who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky!”

Nursey forced out a laugh, “Yeah, maybe!”

He thanked her for passing his journal over the counter, gave a little wave, and was out of the store to finish the rest of his Jack mandated exercise before his afternoon classes.

***

Two weeks later, a week before Lardo’s birthday, Nursey had almost forgotten about the whole art supply thing. He, Chowder, and Dex were lounging in the Haus living room doing assignments in companionable silence. If you could count Dex’s furious typing as silence. He was highlighting every Victorian dick joke he could find in that week’s reading assignment when his phone dinged quietly next to him, an email alert. Nursey tilted his phone to see if it was important and was surprised to see the Prizm art store email address.

Unlocking his phone, Nursey checked his email, surprised and not surprised at the same time to see the large “Congratulations!” block letters at the very top. He muttered a quick, “Sweet,” mostly to himself before locking his phone again and returning to his homework. That was one less thing he had to worry about and could be crossed off of his to do list. When he looked up to grab his book again, Chowder and Dex were staring at him.

“What?”

“Are you going to share with the rest of the class?” Dex asked good naturedly.

“Uhh. I sort of entered this giveaway that Prizm was doing? Thought if I won I could give the supplies to Lards for her birthday next week.”

Chowder’s interest looked piqued, “Did you win?”

“Ch’yeah I did.” Nursey grinned at him.

Chowder beamed, “That’s so cool! I’ve never won anything like that before!”

Nursey just laughed again, Chowder’s enthusiasm contagious, “Yeah it’s pretty cool I guess.”

“What about you Dex?” Chowder asks, turning his head to look at Dex who was sitting cross legged against the armchair on the other side of the living room.

“What about me?” He asked, even though Nursey was sure he had been listening to the entire conversation, contrary as ever.

“Have you ever won a giveaway or contest? Or oh! One of those phone call ins?”

Dex just looks mildly constipated, like he normally does when something that shouldn’t feel like a big deal upsets him in some way or another, “No, can’t say that I’ve ever won anything.” Which… that’s a loaded response. Nursey’s going to think about that more later.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky next time we see one then.” Chowder continues to smiles, “Oh god that reminds me though I completely forgot to get something for Lardo’s birthday.”

“It’s cool, we can all just sign a card together and say it was from the three of us.” Nursey offers. It’s not like he had paid for any of it anyways, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have minded sharing credit anyways.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” Chowder asks, completely serious like he’s not referencing an old 80’s love song.

“All the time bro, all the time.” Nursey grins at him and then turns to Dex, who’s face is doing a weird thing that Nursey doesn’t have the energy to think about, “Does that sound chill?”

Dex doesn’t even make fun of him for saying it, just smiles a tiny smile and says, “Sounds good to me.”

***

Lardo practically shouts in excitement when she opens the large, meticulously (thanks to Dex) wrapped box full of art supplies a week later. It’s just her and the frogs for this particular present, Nursey couldn’t hold out any longer before giving her the present and Chowder and Dex caved quickly after. She looks up at Nursey and gives him a smile that at the same time manages to be a little bit of a leer. She’s rifling through some of the stuff, too excited to keep her hands off of it for the moment. When she’s had her fill of cooing over the art supplies she smiles wide again.

“How did you know?” She asked.

“Know what?” Nursey couldn’t keep the excited tone out of his voice either.

“I’ve been dying to get that basket giveaway from Prizm. All of my art friends still here kept sending me pictures of it for the past month. You like totally recreated the whole basket.”

“That is the basket giveaway from Prizm!” Chowder grinned.

“You’re shitting me right?”

“Nah,” Nursey tone light, “I saw it and thought ‘whoa, Lards would kill for that stuff’ so I put my name in and they emailed me like a couple weeks later about it.”

There was a strange look that crossed Lardo’s face then. Not bad, definitely not. More like it looked like something that never made sense before finally started to make sense. Or that she was having some kind of epiphany. Nursey wasn’t sure what exactly it was. He looked at Chowder who was just smiling along still and then back at Dex who quirked an eyebrow at him and shrugged.

“You gonna share with the class?” Nursey asked her.

“I thought Shitty was totally out of his mind when he said something to me about it, but apparently he was telling the truth.”

“What truth?” Dex asked, finally speaking up for the first time since they had handed her the present.

Nursey groaned, “No. It’s like, totally not a thing! And Shits was lying!”

Larissa just smiled wider, pulling from ear to ear, “It’s totally a thing Derek. You’re lucky.”

“Lucky? What do you mean lucky?” Chowder asked, pulling his feet up on the couch, getting comfortable like he thought he was in for a long haul of a story.

Lardo made eye contact with Nursey, having a silent conversation, and when Nursey just waved his hand in a ‘go on’ motion, she continued, “Shits said that Nursey just had the weirdest lucky streak every now and then. Said he didn’t believe any of it ‘people make their own destiny Lards!’ but it was fun to witness.”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” Nursey didn’t mind, the gentle chirping between the two of them was good fun.

“He said you won like three different thousandth customer giveaways in a single month.”

Chowder laughed, “It’s like that Disney channel movie. The one with the kid who plays basketball!” He kept snapping his fingers, hoping it would come to him.

It was quiet for a moment, none of them being able to quite remember what it was. Then Dex spoke up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, “Luck of the Irish.” He muttered. And Derek was really going to have to dig deeper to figure out just how many Disney Channel Original Movies Dex had seen.

“Yeah!” Chowder yelled, “That one. You’re totally the lucky basketball kid!”

“I swear, it’s not actually a thing. I just happen to be in the right place at the right time.”

“I think that’s just part of being lucky.” Dex groused, annoyed but not upset.

“I like to think of it more like serendipity.” He replied.

Dex’s brows furrowed, “Isn’t that the same thing as luck?”

“Not even close Poindexter, not even close.”

***

It wasn’t a month later that his thing became a thing again only at Samwell. Chowder had told everyone about the art supply story, which was totally fine with Nursey, really he didn’t mind. The chirps in the group chat were pretty mild all things considering, ranging from joking ‘Hey wanna give this presentation at work for me?’ (Ransom) to ‘Please for the love of all that is Holy enter that Hamilton ticket giveaway’ (Holster) and a ‘Mary Berry is going to be within three hours of me next week, Derek!’ (Bitty). Regardless, everything had been super chill, and no one had said anything more than a passing chirp that was over and done with as soon as it was spoken.

Except for Dex. It wasn’t even that he was chirping Nursey to the grave and back. It was more that he wasn’t saying anything at all. Which, yeah okay, he and Dex had a tendency to let chirps go too far with each other. Most things that had meant to stay as civil and fun hearted quickly growing into something that hit a little too close to home and stung a little too deep. They were getting better at not doing that. Honestly. Like for real. Being roommates this year had helped a lot in that situation.

So it was starting to grate on him when Dex didn’t join in on the ‘Hey Nursey, enter this contest…’ chirp competition to… well to make fun of him. Which maybe would have made him super frustrated a year ago but now was annoying him more than not hearing it in the first place. It was whatever though. He wasn't going to let it bother him. Really, he wasn’t.

“Why aren’t you chirping me with the others?” Or maybe it was going to bother him so much he would perseverate on it until it drove him mad.

The two of them were in the library. It was their usual study sesh time when Dex would normally read for his English course he had to take as a requirement and Nursey would try as hard as he could not to be a total cliche and sneakily write poetry about the rusted hue of Dex’s hair matching his rusted attitude or something similar.

“Sorry, what?” Dex was looking at him with that pinched expression that let Nursey know he was either really annoyed or really confused.

“Why aren’t you chirpi-”

“No I got that. I mean why do you care?” Dex grabbed the sticky note he had been using as a bookmark and pressed the sticky side down right underneath the line he had just finished reading. He kept gripping the pen he had been using to underline key sentences with.

Nursey honestly didn’t have an answer for that so he just shrugged, “I don’t know man. Just thought you’d jump at the opportunity to make fun of me is all.” Something flashed in Dex’s eyes and Nursey had been seeing so many unidentified expressions coming from Dex recently that he could make a book out of them all.

“Because it’s not a big deal. ‘Sides, you’re the one who keeps saying it’s not actually a thing, right? Figured you probably didn’t want to hear about it over and over and over. It was just one basket right?”

Because that’s what would have annoyed Dex. What actually really did annoy Dex. Like that time he had tried to type BDubs and his clumsy fingers or his autocorrect (Nursey still wasn’t sure what the excuse was) had ended up with him sending a text about eating BDSM instead. That one… well that one had been hard to live down and Dex took it pretty well the first round of chirps, but after two weeks of it….

“Yeah you’re right,” Nursey agreed, “besides this stuff happens to everyone..”

“Now that is actually not a thing.”

“Yeah it is! People win giveaways and competitions all the time Poindexter. Someone has to be winning them.”

“Yeah but someone isn’t everyone Nurse.” Oh the last name was coming out again.

“You’re telling me you’ve never won a giveaway or like a non hockey related competition? Like not even those ones for stupid school fundraisers where you had to see who could sell the most cookie dough?”

“That’s not a luck thing Nursey that’s a which classmate’s parent works somewhere where people feel obligated to buy cookie dough they don’t want from their kid’s fundraiser.”

“You really have never won anything? Ever? In your entire life?”

“You remember those cereal boxes that would have the color changing spoons or pens that could write in five different colored inks at the bottom of the box?”

Nursey nods, “Yeah, of course.”

“They were guaranteed to be in the box Nursey. I opened one and the wrapper it was supposed to come in was there, but there was nothing in it.”

Nursey can’t help it, “That’s the saddest shit I’ve ever heard in my life. You are the unluckiest person I have ever met.”

Dex let out an angry snort, “Thanks for rubbing it in. I thought you said luck doesn’t exist?”

“Oh good luck doesn’t, but bad luck totally does because I’m looking at it right now.” Nursey nods to where Dex is still gripping the pen he had used to underline whatever it was he was underlining.

There was a huge ink stain on his hand, spreading rapidly from where the ink was coming out of the nib of his pen. Dex cursed slightly, letting the pen drop to the table. Nursey followed his movements as his tongue darted out to lick his clean thumb and began rubbing furiously at the stain on his hand. In the meantime, he had elbowed his book off of the library table and onto the floor where it now lay, sans sticky note bookmark which was still somehow attached to the table.

“Oh mother fuck!” Dex whispered furiously, giving up on trying to get the ink stain off of his hand, having only spread it around in the process. He looked up and glared at Nursey, not taking his eyes off of him as he reached down to snatch his book off of the floor, “I don’t know how but this is somehow your fault.”

***

Dex was right though, not about his unluckiness being Derek’s fault, but about one incident of winning a giveaway being an indicator for good luck. He was blissfully unaware of his thing or whatever for the rest of that week until the second incident happened. Honestly, Derek doesn’t even know why he enters the ticket giveaway. He already knows he has an exam he can’t skip that day, but he does it any ways just because it’s not like he’s going to win.

Except that the universe is apparently out to get him and he does. He even tries to keep quiet about this one, but there is absolutely no way everyone in the Haus didn’t just hear Bitty screaming from the kitchen like Betsey had exploded again. Nursey put his hands out in what he thought conveyed a ‘please stop screaming I’m begging you’ feeling, but it seemed to just make Bits more hysterical.

It was only when he heard stomping from upstairs that he knew there was no escaping this without being found out. Dex and Chowder were definitely coming to investigate the cause of Bitty’s very distinctive screaming. Nursey sighed heavily as Dex and Chowder turned the corner into the kitchen. The whole thing probably looked a little weird. Bitty was currently slumped in one of the kitchen chairs, his head in his arms and shoulders shaking while Nursey was standing next to him, shoulders slumped.

“Uh, what the hell?” Dex asked

Nursey could hear himself sighing again, he was doing that a lot lately, “It’s nothing I just gave Bitty some concert tickets I wasn’t going to use.”

Bitty’s head suddenly sprang up from it’s position on his arms. His eyes were shining from the tears, and there were visible tear tracks down his face, “Concert tickets?! These aren’t concert tickets Derek Malik Nurse! These are a lifeline! These are practically tickets to the Met Gala! If the Met Gala was this good! If I was drowning and I could either save all of you or these tickets, I would probably save these tickets.”

Dex let out a quiet, “Jesus,” the same time Chowder asked, “What tickets, what tickets!?”

Bitty just held them up, “I can’t even say it out loud. I’m afraid it’ll stop being real.”

Chowder leaned over to grab the piece of paper that had the tickets on them out of Bitty’s hands. As soon as his eyes scanned over the sheet of paper he let out a small gasp, “These are Beyonce tickets. These are floor seat Beyonce tickets.”

“Why would you buy tickets to a show you know you can’t see?” Dex asked, completely dumbfounded.

Nursey let his eyes train themselves on the ceiling for a moment because he definitely knew he was only inviting more chirping at this point, “I didn’t buy them for me specifically. I just liked an insta post.”

Dex gave him this look that was utterly disparaging but wondrous at the same time. Nursey had seen it on his parent’s faces a lot, “You just liked an instagram post?”

Bitty was nodding along furiously, “You liked the post, and you retweeted, and then you could win tickets.”

“Retweeted what?” Nursey asked.

“Retweeted the same instagram post, only on twitter? You had to do both to win tickets?” Nursey must have continued to look confused because Bitty’s face was doing something weird where he looked enraged, but there was no reason to be, “Are you telling me you only did one of the two things you were supposed to do and you still won the tickets?”

Nursey just shrugged, “Must not have read the post all the way through. Maybe they don’t actually look that well?”

Bitty looked astounded, “maybe they don’t actually….” then his face went back to its weird thundercloud, “Derek Nurse you are the most frustrating man I have ever met.” He got out of his chair and snatched the paper out of Chowder’s hands before exiting the kitchen. The three of them stood there for a moment before he came marching back in to stand in front of Nursey, “but thank you very much for these and you’re a darling to pass them on to me.” He stood on tiptoes to press a kiss to Nursey’s cheek that he leaned down to recieve.

“Awe, ‘course Bits, anything for you.” He grinned at him widely, the one that he knew drove Dex mad sometimes.

“Yeah well, you best believe that I am skipping all three of my lectures that day.” Bitty grinned before exiting the kitchen again, “and none of y’all better be telling Jack about those classes!” his voice came hurling down the stairs.

Once Bitty was all the way up the stairs, presumably to tell Jack all about the upcoming concert, Dex turned back to him so fast Nursey was sure he almost gave himself whiplash.

“And you said you weren’t lucky. Who wins Beyonce tickets by not following all the rules of the contest?”

Nursey just shrugs, “I’m sure there was more to it then that. Maybe Bitty misread it, maybe it was only one or the other.”

“Bitty misread the rules to win Beyonce tickets?” Chowder’s tone implied that that was the dumbest fucking thing he had ever heard in his life.

“Hey you never know, weirder things have happened!”

Chowder sighed, one of those deep heavy things that moves your entire torso, “Yeah sure. Just next time, do you think you could enter to win tickets to a Sharks game?”

Nursey grinned, “if I win tickets to a Shark’s game I’m keeping them to myself. Better luck next time.” He gave them a jaunty little waive before heading out of the kitchen, listening to Chowder sputter laughter.

***

The thing with Nursey and his so called luck was, was that it wasn’t always big things. Sometimes it was the small things that he noticed more. Most people called that karma, even if that wasn’t what karma actually was. Derek liked to believe that helping others and being a generally chill dude, that the universe was eventually going to pay you back for that kind of thing. Or maybe it was just that he was the type of person who noticed the magic in everyday good things. It was the poet in him. It wasn’t only him who noticed all the small stuff more than the big stuff either though. Dex was taking a particular interest in all of it if only for ‘a reasonable amount of disbelief that this is actually your life.’

Currently the two of them were heading off to the one class they shared together. An elective that hit their history and humanities requirement at the same time, HIST 3260, Women in American History. The original plan had been for all three of the frogs to take it together, but Chowder had had to take an extra Comp Sci class that semester and had to drop it before the class had even started, leaving Dex and Nursey alone together.

Nursey watched Dex quietly from the corner of his eye. It was the only time he had seen Dex in a class setting and it was… intense to say the least. He always assumed Dex would be one of those students who would write meticulous notes, but what he hadn’t realized was that Dex would write every single thing the professor said verbatim. He also refused to use a laptop, for some reason preferring to write everything by hand in small, uniform, capital letters. He had a one subject notebook for every single one of his classes that fit perfectly in 3 inch binders that were labeled with the class, hall, and time on each one.

It was in direct contrast to Nursey, who kept every single class related item he owned in the same large messenger bag, hoping that he could find it later when he needed to. He liked to write his notes in the margins of his textbooks, highlighting the important parts and getting his immediate thoughts down on paper before he lost it. If he needed to go back and listen to a lecture, he always brought a recorder along with him. It was chaos, but it was the sort of organized chaos that worked for him. He hadn’t lost books or assignments yet so he thought he was doing pretty well.

It was that same line of thought that had Nursey suddenly thinking about how very intense of a person Dex was in general. He was never able to take anything at face value. It always seemed like he thought there was more to everything. Whereas Nursey could multi-task like the best of them, Dex wouldn’t be able to start a new “thing” until the last thing was done and done to his exacting satisfaction. Whenever he was focused on something, it had his full focused attention, no matter what it was. He just wasn’t able to… well Nursey wasn’t going to say chill because he could practically hear the eye-roll that’s how big it would have been. But Dex needed to unwind for sure.

“If you keep staring off into space like that, you’re going to run into a telephone pole or a bike rack.” Dex’s voice jolted him out of his contemplative streak and back into the present.

“Yeah well you don’t need any help running into things. Or people.”

“That was one time! Besides, half of that was Chowder’s fault anyways.”

Nursey laughed, “Keep telling yourself that Poindexter. You’re secretly just as clumsy as the rest of us, it’s just that no one is around to see it when you are.”

“Yeah, and everyone is around to see you spill milk all over yourself and to see you hit people in the face with your hockey bag. What’s the point?”

“No point, just pointing out the cold hard facts as it were.” Nursey would have kept going, but suddenly something caught his eye and he stopped walking, bending down to pick it up.

Dex had walked forward a few steps before he realized Nursey wasn’t beside him any longer and he stopped to twist around and find him, “What are you doing?”

“Look! I found twenty dollars on the ground!” Nursey stood up and waved the bill at him.

Dex rolled his eyes and went to take a step forward towards Nursey and the surprise money but before he had a chance, a car zoomed by, splashing up the puddled water on the side of the road from that morning’s rain storm. It caught Dex all over his front, soaking his hair, his face, his clothes, and somehow his book bag at the same time. If Nursey hadn’t bent down to pick up the money he saw laying on the ground he would have gotten soaked instead, having been the one walking on the outside.

The two of them stood there in silence for a moment before Dex let out a loud, “Mother Fuck!” waving his arms to get some of the mud that had come up with the water off of his hands and arms. He had dirt splayed all over his face as well.

“Here dude let me help.” Nursey swung his bag around, taking out the pack of baby wipes he carried with him everywhere. This shit normally happened to him, and he was prepared at all times.

He handed one to Dex, who took it with a grimace on his face. Dex started wiping off his face again while he and Nursey continued the small couple minute walk to their class, “This is absolutely great.” Dex muttered trying desperately but unsuccessfully to clean his muddy shirt off.

When they finally reached the building, Nursey pulled Dex into the bathroom right inside the left hand door. Dex let out a little squawk, but went with him willingly anyways. Nursey pulled him over to one of the stalls, and digging through his bag again, pulled out a Samwell Hockey shirt with his name and number on the back.

“We’re practically the same size, so go ahead and put this on. It won’t help your pants situation at all, but at least you’ll be in a dry shirt right?”

Dex looked at him like he was crazy, and then stared down at the shirt Nursey was still holding out. He reached out and took it gingerly, like he was afraid he was somehow going to rip it before he backed into the stall to change. Not two seconds later, when Nursey figured Dex was trying to drop his bookbag on the ground to get his other shirt off, he heard a loud splash and then Dex’s voice again shouting, “Damn it!”

“Did you… did you just drop your backpack into the toilet?”

“No! I mean… yes! But I wasn’t trying to!”

“Watching you is exhausting sometimes.” He meant for it to come out as exasperated, but the silence on the other side of the stall told him it came out as nothing but fond instead.

***

It was after that incident in the whole luck debacle of this school year that Nursey noticed it finally. If he was “lucky” Dex was the unluckiest person he had ever met. Which Dex had told him as much earlier in the year, but Dex didn’t believe in Nursey’s luck anymore than he did, so he figured Dex had just been making a joke about his unluckiness back then too.

He started paying more attention to the little things that happened to Dex. Nursey would happen to forget to turn in a paper for a class, only to open his email and see that the professor had given an extension on it for another day. Dex, not even three days later, had his paper finished a week before the due date only to accidentally leave his book bag on the campus bus that day and be late not only to his class, but have an entire 10% taken off his paper due to lateness.

Nursey was constantly finding money on the ground. Whether it be on Campus, at Annie’s, or at Faber, it always just seemed to be there. He returned it every time of course, but the fact was he still found it. Dex had a habit of losing any kind of physical cash he kept on him. If he wasn’t dropping change down storm drains he was losing dollar bills underneath the couch cushions. It always seemed like when it was Nursey’s turn to do the Haus dishes (‘Y’all live here, you get added to the chore chart!’) the plates seemed to always be rinsed off and practically clean already. Dex had the unfortunate displeasure of touching soggy food on numerous occasions.

The whole thing had sent Nursey into a contemplative downward spiral of emotions. Dex, who already had a tough time by virtue of birth, not that Nursey was a stranger to having a tough time based off of the way he was born because fuck you he knew all about that whether he had wanted to or not, had the most absolute shit luck Nursey had ever seen in his life. It was starting to put him in a bad mood now that he had noticed it and couldn’t stop noticing it.

It was like everyday life was put there just to kick Dex in the shins and tell him to fuck off. And while Dex had some anger issues stemming from stuff Nursey was sure he didn’t know the half of, suddenly most of Dex’s bad moods started to make sense. Really, how many times could you break the skate of your blade before you finally lost it and felt the intense urge to throw a hockey stick at the wall? How many times could someone spill water, milk, or other liquid down the front of your shirt before even someone making eye contact with you was enough to make your blood boil? Okay maybe it wasn’t that intense but Nursey suddenly got some of it.

He was lounging on Chowder’s bed, snoozing in and out of a nice rest listening to Chowder type away on his laptop from where he was sitting on the floor, back propped up against one of the legs of his bed frame. Probably some Comp Sci thing he and Dex had together. He had been thinking about the concept of luck the entire week, and Chowder had always been a good sounding board for him when he needed to work through a problem. Even if this wasn’t necessarily a problem, he figured Chowder would have some kind of insight regardless.

“Hey Chowder?”

“Hey Nursey.” Chowder responded, not taking his eyes off of the screen or letting up on the constant clicking of his keyboard.

“Have you ever noticed Dex has like… terrible luck?” He hated the L word but there was really no other way to explain it.

“He’s unfortunate to watch sometimes, yeah.” Chowder stopped typing at this and twisted around so he could look at Nursey.

“But I mean… have you ever really noticed? He got splashed with puddles by a car three different times last week. He wasn’t even walking on the outside of the sidewalk any of those times either.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then, yesterday when we were walking to our Women’s Studies class he bit his tongue so bad trying to chirp me that he literally had blood on his shirt.”

Chowder stuck him with a withering look, “That sounds more like Karma to me,”

“Oh! And get this!” Nursey sat up suddenly on the bed, enough to jostle Chowder from where he was leaning against the bed frame, “you know why he was so grumpy yesterday? Like literally code red, do not interact, grumpy?”

Chowder looked a little interested in that, “Yeah I was wondering what was wrong with him yesterday.”

“We were leaving our class and had just stepped into the elevator. This girl comes running around the corner asking us to hold it so Dex sticks his arm out to stop the door from closing. He must have moved too fast or something though because his wallet fell out of his jacket pocket and went straight down the gap between the door and the elevator chute.”

Chowder just stares at him for a moment, completely silent before offering up an astounded, “Holy shit.”

Nursey just nods sagely, “Yeah I know man. I think time stood still. All he did was stare at his shoes for like a good three minutes. He didn’t even look mad until we got back to the Haus. It was like he was so resigned to it.”

Chowder laughs, “Maybe that’s why you two are always butting heads.”

“Because he’s a trainwreck to witness in real life?”

Chowder just grins, “No because you two are like exact opposites.”

Nursey returns the grin, “Well we can’t all be sauve debonairs.”

Something that suspiciously sounds like a snort leaves Chowder’s mouth at that but Nursey doesn’t comment on it, “Well, opposites attract and all that.”

It was a comment so out of left field that Nursey can’t even remember later what his first thought after he heard it was, “What do you mean?”

Chowder just stares at him like he’s in an episode of the Office, “Are you serious right now?”

“Serious? I don’t even know what you’re talking about! What do you mean opposites attract? Because we’re friends? Yeah I’ll admit, we’re definitely closer than we were last year for sure.”

“Because you’re… friends,” Chowder still has that look on his face, like Nursey is his favorite person in the world but he can’t handle him at the moment, “Nursey come on you don’t have to pretend in front of me. We’re like best friends aren’t we?”

And really what was he supposed to say to that? Of course they’re best friends, “As your best friend I am telling you right now that there is absolutely no type of attracting between me and Poindexter. I mean it. No opposite, no samsies, nothing.”

“Okay.” Chowder responds simply.

Nursey can slowly feel himself losing every shred of calm he has left for the day, “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay! What else did you want me to say?”

“I don’t know I thought… I thought you would argue with me. Like try to convince me that I was an idiot who couldn’t see what was happening in front of me or whatever.”

“You sound like you want me to argue with you about it. Like you want me to convince you of something?” Chowder had this smile on his face, it must of been a goalie thing because he’s never seen someone else smile like that before, like they knew something you didn’t but they were perfectly content to never tell you what it was and watch you flounder around instead.

“I definitely don’t want you to argue man, because there’s absolutely nothing there.”

“Of course not, I totally believe you.” And Nursey knew Chowder didn’t believe him at all, “maybe if you hadn’t camped out in my room the last three days in a row and talked about how sad you were about Dex’s pretend unluckiness for a combined 8 hours I might believe you more.”

Nursey makes a noise that sounds eerily similar to the squawk seagulls make, “I have not!” He throws one of the pillows from Chowder’s bed at the back of his head.

Chowder deflects it quickly, hitting it off to the side, “You’re not exactly subtle Nursey. I’m not saying it’s anything but like, I don’t know, think on it maybe? Even if it’s just to clear your head because I know as soon as you leave this room you’re going to perseverate on this until your mind explodes.”

Nursey scoffs, “Yeah yeah yeah, sure, will do.” He grabs his bag and throws it over his shoulder before heading out for his last class of the day.

The thing is though, Nursey doesn’t think about it. He resolutely refuses to think about it. Refuses to think about how vivid the color of Dex’s hair is, or how cliche it is that he’s caught himself wanting to reach out and trace a line of freckles behind Dex’s ear. Absolutely refuses to think about the fact that they’re sharing Lardo’s room next year. He just doesn’t think about it, and before long he’s not thought about it all the way to the end of the school year.

***

Nursey loves going home on holidays and summer vacation. It’s probably one of the things he looks forward to the most. New York always welcomes him back with open arms and it feels like getting to see a family member you haven’t seen in years every single time he sets foot off of the plane after landing. The only bad thing about coming home for summer vacation is that he’s an only child and his parents, while loving and supportive and always there for him if he needs them, work long hours. They typically take a week off every summer so the Nurse’s can go some place they’ve never been before and enjoy each other’s company for an uninterrupted period of time.

Unfortunately for Nursey that had been the second week of summer break and now he’s another month into it and he feels himself slowly going stir-crazy like he hadn’t the last year being home for break. He’s not sure what it is this time. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t have the annual Nurse getaway to look forward to anymore, maybe it’s that he’s going to be a senior once this summer is over, or maybe it’s the fact that he actually can’t wait to get back to school, or even more, maybe it’s the fact that he’s sent Dex approximately 800 snapchats, 1,500 texts, and thought about calling him no less than 20 times this summer already. He thought about calling him. Who the hell calls people anymore, who even wants to?

So maybe it’s cabin fever being stuck in New York without family getaway time, and maybe it’s also the fact that he’s having D-man partner withdrawals that he absolutely does not want to think about harder than he has to, but Derek is getting the worst case of ants in his pants and he really needs to figure out what to do about it now. Which is how he ends up facetiming with Bitty at 2am in the morning on Friday.

“It never felt like this before. I was always so happy to come home, even from Andover. Like, even if I was doing the same exact thing every single summer it didn’t matter because I was doing it here.”

Bitty is currently sitting on the couch in what Nursey knows is Jack’s apartment, trying not to wake the other man up. The Hockey season is over for the Falcs but Jack hardly deviates from his normal schedule so Nursey is sure he’s going to be up in three and a half more hours without fail. Bitty hums in agreement, a little tired around the eyes, but he’s a night owl when he wants to be so Derek knows he’s not keeping him up.

“Is it maybe that you didn’t want to get back so much last summer because you didn’t have anything to come back to?” Bitty asks quietly.

Nursey is a little confused by that question, “Of course I had stuff to come back to. I had classes I was going to enjoy and I had you guys. I want to see you all again now too.”

Bitty lets out a huff, “I know that sweetheart, I didn’t think you didn’t want to see us or anything. Let me rephrase.” He scoots around on the couch so his feet are tucked underneath him like he’s getting ready for whatever truth he’s about to drop, “Is it that you have something you have something new you want to come back to that you didn’t have last year?”

Nursey thinks about it for a moment, “I don’t have anything coming up this school year that I didn’t have last year? I mean I get to take that new class finally, the topics in multi-ethnic American Literature that I was telling you about last year but that’s it?” 

If looks could kill, Bitty would have murdered him already, “I say this in the nicest way possible Derek but for all the romanticism you encapsulate, you’re an oblivious man.”

“I still don’t get it.”

Bitty sighs, “Nevermind darling. You and Dex have been getting along better right? You feel good about sharing a room next year?”

Oh. Suddenly Derek knew exactly what Bitty meant when he said he had something new to come back to when the school year started up. He meant someone not something, “You’re terrible at changing the subject without actually changing the subject you know that right?”

Bitty just preened, like it was a compliment, “The question still stands. You feeling okay about it?”

Derek had to think about it for a moment. Did he feel good about it? His initial gut reaction was positive. He and Dex had started getting along a lot better their sophomore year than they had their freshman year by leaps and bounds. The dib flip situation still stung a little bit, but if Nursey was being honest he was mostly over it by now. Maybe. A little bit. There wasn’t necessarily any reason Derek had to not look forward to it. Other than the fact that Dex could be very particular about his spaces that might clash with the way Nursey was with his spaces. And sure, Dex still said things that honestly just exhausted Derek, but those times were becoming once in a blue moon situations. He’d grown a lot, and Nursey had seen that.

But then there was the fact that Derek had been trying hard not to think about the other things he was thinking about Dex this whole last year. He thought it was a stupid crush, born out of familiarity and being together constantly. When the summer had started though, every single time Derek had seen something even remotely funny his first reaction had been, ‘I need to send this to Dex’ and 9 times out of 10 he would. Not only that, but 9 times out of 9 Dex would respond with some kind of chirpy comment that would make Nursey smile or laugh. Something like that would have never happened last year. Dex had hardly even texted back in the Frog group chat that he and Chowder had kept active all summer.

Derek groaned and hid his face in his pillow, “I can’t do it Bits. This was such a bad decision.”

“I don’t know, you seemed so excited when the dib flip ended the way it did.”

“That was before I…” Derek couldn’t even bring himself to say it but he knew Bitty understood exactly what he meant anyways.

Bitty’s face went soft with sympathy, “If it makes you feel any better, I think his reaction was just knee jerk you know?”

“No I know, I’m totally over that. He apologized for it the next day anyways.” And he had, stumbling over it and red faced, but still a sincere apology, “I just… what if this is a terrible mistake Bitty?” His voice got quiet and shy and he hated when he sounded like that.

“I don’t think anything you’re feeling could ever be a mistake Derek. I think that sometimes we just gravitate towards who we do and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I think it’s what you make of it after you accept it that really matters.”

Derek snorted, but it was good natured, “love has changed you Bits, you’re a total sap now.”

Bitty’s face went red enough that Derek could tell even in the dark of his room and the soft lamplight of the Providence apartment, “hush you, I was always a sap!” he chuckled softly, “well whatever it is you decide to do, I’m here for you no matter what you call me any time okay?”

Derek nodded, “Okay Bits, I will. Thanks for staying up with me.”

Bitty smiled warmly at him, “It’s no problem Derek. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for y’all, even if it’s listening to your boy troubles at 2am.”

“2:35 now.” Derek said with a grin.

“Oh shoot it’s that late already. I should head to bed, I’ll text you tomorrow morning. Let me know how everything pans out, and don’t hesitate to call me if you need any more advice. I hear I’m good at it now that I’m in love or something.”

“The best Bitty! Go to sleep!” Derek ends the call and closes his eyes. He needs as much sleep as possible if he’s even going to tackle the issue of what to do when he sees Dex in another month and a half.

***

Except as fate would have it, he doesn’t need to worry about what he’s going to do when he sees Dex in another month and a half because he’s going to have to worry about what he’s going to do when he sees Dex this weekend instead. It starts half way into the night, around eleven or so. Nursey can’t sleep, he can never sleep in the summers, it’s too hot. He could turn the air conditioning on, but the noise keeps him more awake than the heat does. So he calls Dex instead, or well, he facetimes Dex instead. He figures Dex won’t answer he’s got to be up at some inconceivable time that only cryptids are awake at to do something like lobster fishing or carpentry. So anyways, he’s not expecting him to answer. Or if he does, he’s expecting him to answer at the fifth or sixth ring, not halfway through the first like he does.

The thing that strikes Nursey the most is how different Dex looks. It’s only been about a month and a half since Nursey has seen Derek face to face like this, live. Not over snapchat or selfies, but actually in the moment. The thing is though, is that Dex doesn’t look different in the way that Bitty gets tan during the summer, or Chowder let’s his hair grow out, he looks different in the fact that his undereyes are grey and a little palid even in the dark lighting. He looks paler than the last time Nursey saw him. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a couple of days.

Nursey must have been staring, knows he was staring, because Dex lets out a little huff, “you called me dude, are you okay?” He says to Nursey’s silence.

“Uh yeah, but I could ask you the same thing? You look like shit man.” And okay he didn’t mean for it to come out like that.

Dex just scoffs instead of getting mad which is also new, “Thanks, you really know how to make someone feel good about themselves.”

Nursey just smiles, a small apologetic thing. It seems like Dex gets it though because he doesn’t say anything else, let’s Nursey talk instead, “You doing okay up in the wilds of northern america?”

“It’s Maine Nursey, not the Yukon. Stephen King lives in Maine you know, would he live in Maine if it was wild?”

“He absolutely would Poindexter, get with the program.” Nursey grins and it feels nice to just talk about nonsense like this, but he notices the third time Will yawns in a period of a minute, “You gotta be to bed soon right? Can’t you like only catch Lobsters at the most ungodly of hours?”

Dex rolls his eyes, “Yeah we get up early. I’m not going tomorrow though so I’ve got some time.”

“Oh? A rare break from Poindexter! Summer has changed you man.”

Dex just lets out a heavy sigh, “No more like I pissed my uncle off and I’m not working out there now until he decides he’s done being mad at me.”

That’s new. Dex only talks about his lobster uncle with the fondest of tones so he isn’t sure what they could have possibly gotten into a fight about. As a matter of fact Dex has lamented time and time again about how he bites his tongue when it comes to his uncles because he’s a kid and they’re adults or some stupid bullshit about not making family mad. Nursey didn’t really get it at the time, but he’s an only child with parents who are only children. The point is, Dex would never voluntarily say something that would piss off an uncle, even on accident. Nursey is curious, but he also doesn’t want to come off as trying to pry so he isn’t sure what to do in this situation.

“That… that sucks?” Is what he eventually goes with even if it’s not that smooth.

“Real elegant Nurse.” Dex rolls his eyes, but he’s got a small smile tugging on the edge of his lips.

“I mean, do you wanna talk about it? Because I have been told multiple times that I am like actually the best shoulder to cry on.”

“Maybe the boniest shoulder.”

“Hey the offer still stands Poindexter!”

And he’s not expecting Dex to take him up on it at all. Dex is one of those private people who never really tells you what’s going on with him emotionally or life event wise unless you’re there to witness it yourself. So when Dex let’s out a heaving sigh and his shoulders slump, somewhat in defeat Nursey makes sure to listen to every single word so he doesn’t somehow mess up this rare chance of vulnerability.

“It’s just…” he pauses and rubs a hand over his face, either taking his time to think about his words or not being able to get it out, “Do you ever feel like every time you go back home it’s different? Or maybe you’re different but it’s not the same. It’s like you used to fit in this space, it was you-shaped and suddenly without even realizing it you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?”

Nursey wasn’t sure what to think about what Will had just said. On one hand he was still reeling from the fact that Dex was trusting him enough to tell him this. It was definitely the first time they were venturing into this territory of maybe, possibly opening up to each other about something that actually mattered. On the other hand, this really wasn’t about him and Dex was trusting him to possibly give him some kind of profound advice. Which normally he was able to come up with the right words at the drop of a hat, but instead of giving Dex something he could work with instead he decided to verbally vomit.

“Come to New York.”

Dex visibly started in surprise at the offer, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline, “What?”

Nursey took a deep breath, “Come to New York. Come stay with me.”

“No, I heard you. I just mean...why?” Dex had his phone propped up against something because Nursey can see him wringing his hands nervously.

“Because for some reason Maine doesn’t feel you shaped right now and New York is everyone shaped, no matter who you are. So come to New York.”

“Derek,” and Nursey can’t quite stop himself from the small breath he sucks in from hearing Dex say his name so quietly like that, “Your place is like 8 and a half hours away from Stonington.”

“Where’s the closest airport to you?”

“Bangor, probably. It’s about an hour and a half?”

“Do you have anything to do in the next week and a half?”

“No, not really. Not anymore but-” Nursey would ask what the not anymore means later.

“Can you get to the airport tomorrow by 8am?” 

“Well yeah I could but Nurse-”

“Done. You’re coming to New York tomorrow. You’re flight leaves at 10am Poindexter. You need to be there like two hours ear-”

“Derek!” Nursey stops what he’s doing, Dex’s raised voice catches him off guard.

“What’s up?”

“What’s up? Nursey you can’t just buy me a plane ticket because I was sad!”

And that catches Derek off guard a little. Dex had never used the word sad, just said he didn’t feel like he had fit in his old space anymore. But now that Nursey knew Dex was sad he was going to double down on his efforts.

“Of course I can. Listen, Will, any other time I would be like delighted or whatever to let you argue with me about this. This time though I am using skymiles that are never going to get used. It’d be a waste not to use them right?” Maybe if he appeals to Dex’s sense of not being wasteful he won’t argue as much.

“I…” Will looks a little shaken, but not necessarily in a bad way, “thank you Derek.” And Nursey has to try and not react to the way he keeps saying his name tonight for what feels like the millionth time.

“I’ll send the flight information to your Samwell email. I’ll pick you up tomorrow okay?”

Dex is quiet, contemplative, for a moment, just looking down at his hands or the floor Derek isn’t sure. He looks up finally with a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, almost looking a little bashful if Derek didn’t know any better.

“Thanks Nursey. I’ll see you tomorrow.” His fingers seem to twitch involuntarily, almost a wave, before he ends the call.

Derek lets his phone fall to the side landing on his down comforter with a soft plop. He can’t believe he just did that. He and Dex had just started getting along at the end of this last year and now Nursey was inviting him over to stay nearly two weeks with him in New York like they were best friends. He didn’t think he could have stopped himself even if he had tried though. He saw the look on Dex’s face and that was it, he had no more self-restraint. He heaved his legs over the side of his bed, his feet hitting the cold wooden floor of his bedroom.

Grabbing the light quilt from his bed and wrapping it around his shoulders, he walked down the hallway to his mother’s office. He stopped in front of the wooden door and knocked quietly in case she was caught up in something important. He waited in silence for a few moments before he heard the rustling of papers. He heard a small “come in” from inside the office and opened the door to slip in.

Veronica Nurse was sitting at her desk, chair turned around so she could watch Derek walking into the office. She smiled sweetly at him, and Derek noticed all of her paperwork for whatever client she was currently helping was shuffled together and put away in an attache. Her attention was 100 percent on him and it made Derek feel warm inside. His mom was the fucking best. She opened her arms out to him and Derek shuffled across the dark burgundy carpet to fall gently into them for a hug before she let him go and he sat on the chaise next to her desk.

“What’s going on darling?”

“I invited a friend to come stay here for the next week. Is that okay?”

Veronica looked at him appraisingly, “A friend? Someone left over from Andover or Samwell?”

“Someone from Samwell. He… he isn’t having such a good time at home I don’t think, so I asked him if he wanted to come here and spend a majority of what’s left of break with me.”

His mother gave him a small smile, the one she normally saved when she was telling an embarrassing but heartwarming story about his father. She reached out and took his hand in hers, stroking over his knuckles, “you have a big heart, Derek. Of course your friend can stay with us.”

“Thanks Momma.” Derek squeezed her hand back gently before sitting back up on the chair to go back to his room and finally sleep.

“Derek?” His mom called out before he left the room. Derek turned around to look at her, “Does this friend happen to be your defensive partner? The one with the red hair?”

Derek wasn’t sure what the look on her face was all about, and he was normally good at reading his mother. Instead he just nodded his head, “yeah it’s Will.”

His mother’s smile grew a little wider, “thought it might be. Is he flying in tomorrow?” Derek wasn’t sure what to say to the ‘thought it might be’ comment so he just nodded again, suddenly losing his voice for some reason, “okay, be safe on the way over. I’ll make sure the guest bedroom is made up.”

“Thanks mom, have a good night.” Nursey shuffled back over again to leave a quick kiss on her cheek before shuffling back out of the office and back to his room, falling onto his bed and drifting into sleep almost as quickly.

***

Nursey was sitting on a bench by the luggage claim in LaGuardia, idly taping away on his phone waiting for Dex’s flight to come in from Bangor. Really he was going to have to chirp Dex about the names of places in Maine once he was here because who named a city Bangor? They were just asking for a million adolescents to make stupid jokes about the place. Nursey snorted quietly at the three jokes he just made in his head and continued to swipe through his phone, answering texts from Bitty and the group chat.

“You know, I was expecting a nice big sign or something Nurse.” Nursey startled a little bit before looking up and seeing Will in typical Will fashion which meant he was wearing a plain grey tshirt underneath a blue flannel and jeans.

Nursey just grinned, “Well you know, I thought I would make something in Samwell colors, only with glitter but I thought that might be overdoing it.”

Dex let a smile spread across his face, “Yeah that was probably a good call on your part.”

“Did you grab your luggage yet?” Nursey jerked his head at the carousel right across from them that had Dex’s flight number scrolling across the animated screen above it.

“Nah, I just packed this and took it on carry-on.” Nursey noticed the Samwell hockey bag slung over Dex’s shoulder for the first time.

“Efficient to the max as always dude. Come on, we’ll grab a Lyft back to my place.” Nursey led the way outside where they waited by the pick up spot.

They talked about small stuff waiting for the Lyft nothing more serious than hockey, classes they were taking when school started up, things like that. When they got into the car they were still coming up with small talk, easily sure but still small talk. Derek didn’t think conversation was stilted to be exact, but he and Will never spent time like this outside of Samwell together so it was a learning experience for both of them.

When they finally pulled up to Derek’s house, he jumped out of the Lyft to grab Dex’s bag before he had a chance, “Dude you’re a guest!” He shouted when Will tried to wrestle it away from him.

“I can carry my own duffle Nursey, it’s not that heavy!” Will shouted at him as they made their way up Derek’s stoop and into the house.

“Yeah, but if my mom saw me making you carry your stuff, she’d have a conniption.”

“I knew there had to be an underlying motive other than trying to be helpful.” Dex said, but there was a playful tone in his voice and Nursey knew he wasn’t trying to make a purposefully judging comment.

“Just take off your shoes here and put them on the rack.” Nursey said nodding to the metal shoe rack right inside the door. He led Will down a few stairs that were right inside the door and through a short narrow hallway. He unlocked the door at the end of it and called into the house, “Mom! We’re back!”

Will followed Derek into the kitchen, but wasn’t really paying attention to him, far too focused on looking around and gaining his bearings. Derek dropped his hockey bag down on the white marble counters in the kitchen and turned to Dex, “She’s around here somewhere. Said she wanted to be here when you got here.”

Dex’s face went a weird shade of pink, “Why? Does she think some backwoods Maine swamp person is about to cause a kerfuffle?” Derek couldn’t really read the tone in Dex’s voice, but it wasn’t defensive so he decided not to poke at it this time. Besides he was definitely going to chirp Dex on using the word kerfuffle later.

“Nah, I think she just wanted to be over motherly and dote on my D-man partner because she thinks I don’t let her spoil me with enough love and affection.” Nursey grinned at him. Honestly the thought of his mom mothering Dex was a little funny.

“You talk to your mom about me?” Dex asked casually, although the way he was trying to look anywhere but actually at Derek kind of gave away the fact that the question was anything but casual.

“Yeah all the time dude. You’re like my best friend on the team other than C.” Derek said it like was obvious and Dex was being weird for wondering.

“He’s right. He talks about you all the time.” Dex looked up and standing in front of him was a woman who had to be the most striking person he had met before.

Veronica Nurse was nearly as tall as Nursey and Dex, standing only a few inches shorter than the two of them. Her long curly black hair was tied back into a loose pony tail that was resting on the nape of her neck. Dex wasn’t sure where she had been before getting home or where she was about to go, but she looked sharply dressed. She was wearing what Dex had thought were long black pants and a silky looking tank top but realized they were actually just a sleek looking jumpsuit instead with an angular white blazer over it and heels that Dex was sure you had to have practice to even be able to stand in them they were so tall and skinny. All in all she put out a pretty imposing and impressive first impression.

“Mooooom,” Nursey whined a little, like a kid who wasn’t getting his way. It was kind of nice to see him act like anything other than laid back.

Veronica just laughed, “Derek, I’m sure your friend enjoys knowing that you care enough about him to talk to your parents about him. Honestly it’s a compliment, right Will?”

“Yeah of course. I love knowing that Nursey talks about me all the time. It really brightens my day, I can’t wait to tell everyone else.” Dex grinned at Nursey, needling him about it a little bit.

Veronica just watched them, amused, for a moment before picking up the black leather bag off the kitchen counter, “I have to head in for a little bit today, but I’ll be home later okay?” She leaned forward and placed a kiss on Nursey’s cheek before turning to Dex.

Dex’s immediate ‘parent is coming towards me’ reaction was to lift his hand for a handshake like he had done with Bitty’s father, with Jack’s father and mother that one time at parent’s weekend, with pretty much everyone’s parent. Veronica just gave him a sweet smile, something categorized as distinctly motherly and wrapped him in a quick hug. She stepped back and gave Dex’s cheek a small pat, something that felt incredibly welcoming and not at all condescending like he thought something like that would. After giving the boys a quick wave and ‘Have fun!’ Veronica was out of the apartment.

“Dude I can’t believe you tried to shake my mom’s hand.” Nursey snorted, obviously amused from where he was leaning against the counter.

“It was just instinct!” Dex went red faced, Derek had teased him about shaking Coach’s hand and the Zimmermann’s hands as well.

“Dude! I can’t believe you have a thing for my mom!”

“What!?” Dex was going from annoyed to mortified.

“Look at your face! It’s all red!” Nursey was snickering like this was the single best moment of his life so far.

“No, my face is red because you’re annoying and you’re bothering me.” Dex grouched.

“Real good come back man. Wait until I tell the group chat about how you’ve got the hots for my mom.” Derek grinned brandishing his phone like a weapon, waving it around.

“If you so much as think that you’re going to send anything remotely saying that I have a… a crush on your mom I’m going to end you Nurse. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how but I will.”

“Do you have a special set of skills?” Derek asked. When Dex just gave him a blank look Derek sighed, “Bro, I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has seen less movies than you have.”

“Sorry I don’t understand your artsy movie references.” Dex rolled his eyes.

“Okay first of all, Taken isn’t artsy. It is so far away from an ‘artsy’ movie. Like as far away as you can get.”

“Secondly?”

“Secondly what?”

“You said ‘first of all’ so there has to be a second point to that right?”

“Nah man, I just said it for some extra dramatic flair and stuff.”

Dex rolled his eyes. They were chirping each other just like they normally did which was nice for Dex. He had expected to come to New York and immediately regret his decision. Nursey however had been suspiciously less annoying than he usually was. Normally he was pushing every single one of Will’s buttons and doing so with manic glee. But so far he’d been pretty restrained with any kind of tone that normally just sent Dex’s blood boiling. Not only that but Nursey’s mom had been so inviting and warm that Dex was momentarily put off guard right now. He found himself genuinely enjoying the back and forth more than he had since he’d met the other man.

“Ground control to Major Poindexter?”

Dex just sighed, “That’s a David Bowie reference.”

Nursey just hummed, “well you’re one for two tonight so that’s better than nothing. Okay, grab your bag! I’ll show you were the guest room is.”

Dex did as he was told and grabbed his duffle from where he had let it rest at his feet. He followed Nursey through the rest of the kitchen and into a skinny hallway that led into a much larger living area that was decorated impeccable. Dex was pretty sure he had seen something almost exactly like this on some sort of HGTV show. He followed Nursey again through another long stretch of hallway that had two doors across from each other. Nursey pushed open the door to the room on the right revealing a Queen sized bed, more medium colored wooden floors, and the most better homes and gardens looking space Dex had ever seen before.

“So this is the guest room. The mattress is kind of firm so if you need something softer you can always sleep in my room instead. But there’s a bathroom right down the hall, the first door we passed actually if you need to use it.”

Nursey waited for Dex to put his duffle down on the little foot cushion thing, honestly Dex wasn’t sure what it was called, at the end of the bed. It looked out of place there, a beat up old hockey bag sitting nice on satin looking cushions. Dex looked back at Nursey once his things were set down and raised his eyebrows in a ‘what’s next?’ way before Nursey led them back out into the hallway, closing the guest room behind him.

“And this is my room! My humble abode, my sanctuary, my-”

“Yeah, I get it Nurse, just open the door already.” Will rolled his eyes, but there wasn’t any genuine annoyance to it, more like muscle memory at this point.

Nursey just grinned at him before putting his hand on the door knob. For some reason Will was feeling like he was about to see something that no one else had. Like seeing Nursey’s room was somehow intimate beyond words even though he had been in his dorm room what seemed like thousands of times before. Will could feel his heart pick up speed a little when Nursey swung open the door to reveal what was probably the most Nursey looking bedroom imaginable, but nothing that Will would have thought it’d look like.

For one thing it was entirely spotless. Nursey’s dorm room back at Samwell had never been disgusting but it had always adhered to the “organized chaos” type of messiness. Here, the poofy white comforter was tucked in neatly, pillows completely center and set against the light wooden headboard. The floors were completely spotless without a sock in sight or even a clothes hamper for that matter. It looked like the bookshelf had been dusted recently, every single book was pushed the same distance in and when Dex got closer he noticed they were alphabetized by author too.

The only thing that looked remotely like Nursey’s room at school was the desk. There were notebooks with his scrawling handwriting scribbled all over them open and laying precariously all over. There were stacks of three or four books placed sporadically across the desk. Random papers and numerous amounts of sticky notes were laying everywhere with more of Nursey’s notes written all over them. There were Samwell folders and pencils and pens everywhere. It was the only part of the room that looked lived in.

“So what do you think man?” Dex looked up and saw Nursey was looking at him expectantly and also a little nervous. He realized he’d been staring at his room for at least a full minute without any kind of commentary.

“It’s nice. It’s uh… very organized?”

Derek scoffed, but in a way that Dex knew was basically laughing, “It's alright dude, you can say clean.”

“Your dorm was never dirty just… cluttered?”

Nursey just stares at him, “thanks for sounding so convinced. We can’t all be beat freaks Poindexter.”

“Being tidy isn’t being a neat freak Nursey,” but Dex bumps his shoulders into Derek’s anyways.

“Yeah yeah whatever you say. Anyways enough of judging my inner sanctum. We’ve got decision making to do.”

“Decision making?”

Nursey looks at him like he’s crazy, “William please answer me this. What do you think we’re doing this week?” Derek had steepled his hands together, letting his chin rest on his thumbs.

“Hanging out?” Will ventured. He wasn’t sure what the right answer here was. He always hated questions like this.

“We’re in Brooklyn, Will. We’re going to be dumb tourists… okay we’re going to be slightly smarter tourists which really pains me to say. You’re going to get the most Brooklyn experience I can give you while you’re here.”

“Does that mean going to slam poetry workshops and looking at modern art I don’t understand?” Will cringes, it’s not that he can’t enjoy them for their own merit but he’s always felt out of place with things like that.

Nursey smiles at him, something that Will thinks conveys a ‘I wouldn’t do that to you’ emotion, “I can’t promise you won’t see any modern art while we’re out but I promise not to take you to any slams if you don’t want to go.” He holds up his hand, “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a Boy Scout.”

“You are correct bec-“

“Because the boy scouts are a sexist and homophobic institution amongst other things and you and your parents would never have subjected you to that.” Will finishes before Nursey can even start.

Nursey smiles wide, “Aww Dex! You know me so well!”

“Well when you make the same speech 8 times a week it’s hard to forget.”

“Dude fuck you it’s an important speech,” he grins at him, “but enough of that! I laid out a list of places to visit and their merits. It’s all very analytical, I figured you could appreciate that.”

Nursey turns to his desk and Will sees the list he’s referring to sitting out on top of his notebooks. At the very top of the page is “William Poindexter’s most awesome New York Adventure 2016. Will could see that things were actually color coded into three separate categories. “Will might like,” “Will will definitely like,” And “Probably not but too bad we’re going.”

The amount of time he must have spent thinking about it kind of made Will’s head spin a little bit. Especially thinking about the fact that he hadn’t had a lot of time to think about Will’s visit before it actually happened in the first place. Will glanced at the “Will will definitely like” column to see what was in it. Something called BBG was first on the list.

“What’s BBG?” He asked, pointing to the list.

“Ah, ah, ah William! No peeking!” Nursey grabbed the list and shoved it into his back pocket quickly. He grinned at Will, “What do you think it means? And no phones!”

Will just rolled his eyes. They played the ‘guess what it is’ game all the time. ‘Dex guess what I found,’ ‘Dex guess who I saw in the library,’ ‘Dex guess what Coach Hall said today,” Dex had endless examples and had never guessed a single thing right. He was tired of the guessing game.

“I’m not guessing. Besides I know even if I do try you’re not going to tell me. You have some unholy obsession with surprises.”

Nursey didn’t say anything to that, just a small smile and a grin because he knew it was true, “Fair. Okay I won’t make you guess, but what I will make you do is put your shoes back on because we gotta go if we wanna have enough time to spend there.”

“So it’s an all day thing?”

Nursey shrugged standing up. He grabbed his keys and wallet off of his desk, “not necessarily, but you could definitely stay there all day depending on how much you like that kind of stuff.”

Dex paused to think about it while Nursey slipped his shoes back on and began tying the laces up, “It’s not one of those weird performance art things is it? Like when Tilda Swinton like took naps in front of people.”

Nursey just raises an eyebrow at him as he leads him out of the bedroom, “First, like I am totally impressed you know about that whole thing. Secondly, cross my heart dude, it’s not a performance art installation.”

Dex isn’t sure that he can 100% trust Nursey on that, but he shrugs and follows him out of the room and back the way they came, into the kitchen again. Dex is struck again by how incredibly different Nursey’s life is from his own. He keeps noticing different things about all the same rooms every time he passes through somewhere. Which has only been twice now, but all the same it strikes him for some reason.

Derek’s house is insufferably modern. Everything looks like it’s been updated with the newest trends and like the Nurses have a decorator who comes in every now and then to rearrange the house with the times. Even with that impression though, it's almost as cozy and soft as Dex’s house in Maine. The hallways are all lined with photographs of the family, none of them super old, Derek still looks the same in all of them, but looking a little worn with age even behind the glass of their frames. One of the hand towels wrapped around a shiny chrome handle in the kitchen looks like it was hand sewn, and the few mugs that are in the kitchen sink look like they were bought at tourist stops.

All in all, Nursey’s living space utterly confuses Dex. He doesn’t have much time to worry about it though, because Nursey is already walking towards the door to head out to wherever they’re going. Derek holds the door open for Dex, stepping to the side so Dex can walk through first. Once he’s through, Derek pulls the door shut behind him and locks the deadbolt and the top lock on the door before turning away.

“Alright, let’s go, we’re burning day time dude.” Nursey grins at him in a way that Dex is all too familiar with, a way that makes his stomach do flips every time he sees it.

Dex manages a quick grin, although it feels more like a grimace as he follows Nursey down the sidewalk of his neighborhood. It strikes Dex how many people there are passing them by, how busy everything looks. Stonington isn’t exactly the height of busy city life, even during the tourist season. Dex isn’t sure he’d be able to deal with this amount of people every single day every summer, but Derek looks completely unperturbed by the people walking past, even humming quietly.

Dex is still thinking about Derek and how he lives in this place and how even a little bit of his personality somehow makes sense now when Nursey turns around and asks him something. Dex is so lost in his thoughts that he completely misses it, doesn’t even hear the words. As a matter of fact, he had kept walking, so engrossed in his thoughts that Nursey had to reach a hand out and grab him when he almost passed him by.

“Bro, are you okay?”

Dex startled a little at being stopped so suddenly, “what?”

Nursey grinned at him again, the grin from 15 minutes ago when they had started their walk to wherever it was they were going, “I asked you if you had ever been on a subway or metro like three times.”

Dex could feel his face heat up, “no I- I mean we went on the Metro once when my family went to DC when I was a kid. But I was like 4 or something so no.”

“Chill,” and Dex knew this was Nursey’s ‘oh cool’ chill and not his ‘relax’ chill so he managed to keep the automatic annoyance he felt when hearing the word tampered down, “I mean it’s pretty easy to navigate so it’ll all be cool. Just follow me.”

Nursey turns to walk down steps that have seemingly come out of nowhere. Dex hadn’t even noticed them encroaching on a subway stop at all. He grabbed on to the green railing and followed Derek down into the subway. They stop in front of turnstiles, Derek rummaging through his pockets for something. Dex watches people bustling around going through them to get to the platform and coming out of them to get to the street. There’s a small celebratory noise coming from right next to Dex where Derek has found whatever it was he was looking for. He hands Dex a small yellow plastic card that looks like a bank card with navy lettering on it.

Nursey’s face gets serious all of a sudden, “do not, under any circumstances lose this card. Treat it like a child Dex. Like your firstborn and only. Treat it like a puck that was used for game winning goal in a Stanley Cup Finals last game.”

“Jesus Nurse, I’m not going to lose the damn metro pass.”

And Derek sends him that damn smirk again, for what feels like the 800th time in the last hour, “It’s chill. If you lose it we can just get you a new one.”

“You’re an asshole.” Is Dex’s automatic response, but it seems like the one Nursey was looking for because he just laughs before he heads over to the turnstiles and swipes his pass.

Dex follows him through the turnstile, swiping his own yellow card and pushing through the metal bars. There’s not a huge crowd at this particular stop, a dozen or so people at most, but Nursey reaches back and snags the sleeve of Dex’s shirt anyways. It does something to Dex, makes his heart beat a little faster, his hands get a little clamier. Derek doesn’t look back, he keeps tugging him along until they’re a little further down the platform where only one or two people are milling around.

Dex takes a second to look at the platform and walls. The tiles on the ground are pretty worn. There’s sticky spots in some areas, and some look like they were just polished. The walls seemed like they were originally white but through the day or week or month, however long its been since they’ve got cleaned last, that grime and other unspeakable things have stuck to them, making it some sort of grayish cream color. The smell is the other thing Dex notices. Definitely not the worst smell he’s ever had the displeasure of dealing with. But it’s sooty and grimy and it feels heavy when he breathes in.

He catches Derek staring at him, facing straight ahead of course but his eyes turned so he’s looking at him from his peripherals. He doesn’t even chirp Derek for the obviousness of it all because he’s too busy freaking out about the fact that he keeps referring to him as Derek and not as Nursey in his head. He isn’t sure when that started. They stand like that, in not so awkward but not entirely companionable silence for a while, waiting for their train to stop when Nursey lets out a breath and mutters an excited, “sweet.”

Dex isn’t sure what he’s doing, but he’s gotten closer to the platform’s edge, where the yellow line that’s painted on the ground is clearly telling him not to stand on. He crouches down, his phone in his hand and now Dex is really confused.

“Nursey, I’m pretty sure now is not the time for you to try and get some ‘aesthetic’ shot of the rails or whatever it is you’re trying to do right now.”

“No dude, look.” Nursey is obviously having a grand time trying to photograph whatever is in front of him, so with a sigh Dex rolls his eyes and walks closer to the edge of the platform.

Nursey has snapchat open, the filters up. He’s currently on the one that puts hearts all over the photo, but Dex isn’t sure what exactly it is he’s trying to snap a photo of. He squints his eyes a little, looking down at the bottom of the rails when he sees it. Big, fat, hairy, and completely disgusting.

“Oh my god, what the fuck dude.”

“Chill Poindexter,” Nursey murmurs, moving his phone to try and get the best angle he can, “haven’t you ever seen a rat before?”

“They get into our fishing line for the boats all the time. Doesn’t mean I want to take cute pictures of them. Jesus that’s disgusting.”

The rat really is minding its own business down on the ground below the platform, scurrying around doing whatever it is rats do with their lives. Nursey just laughs at him, clearly taken with the thing for whatever reason. He leans back, having apparently gotten a shot he can be proud of before sending it off to the SMH group snap. He turns and gets a quick shot of Dex’s still horrified face and sends that off to the group snap too.

“Aren’t New York rats like…” Dex waves his hand around, backing up so he doesn’t have to look at the thing anymore.

“Like what?” Nursey asks, and he looks like he’s enjoying this way too much. Like he is honestly a little to excited to know what idea Dex has in his head about rats from New York as opposed to the rats they find in Maine.

“I don’t know dude! Like mutants or something!” Dex can feel the hair on his arms stand on end. In Maine, in Stonington rats weren’t a good thing. They meant your fishing nets were useless now and that if your fishing lines weren't put up well enough, well those were useless now too.

Derek just scoffs, “Chill, Poindexter. New York rats are like… they’re like every New Yorkers extended family.”

Dex just looks at him as he stands back up, wiping his hands off on the knees of his pants, “do you say things sometimes just to piss me off?”

Nursey just smiles at him, but doesn’t say anything as he takes a step back and the train comes roaring into the platform with a gush of warm dirty smelling air. If it were a teenage romance movie, Dex supposes the move would have seemed cool. But since this wasn’t a romance movie geared towards teenagers, Nursey just looked pretentious doing it and Dex was sure he did it just to annoy the shit out of him.

The train doors open, and Dex and Nursey wait for the riders to file out before they step onto the car. Dex thinks about going to the nearest seat and sitting down, but he’s pretty sure those are meant to be kept open for older folks and people who need more rest than an in the best shape of his life hockey player does. Instead he follows Nursey a little bit towards the back and grabs hold of the same silver pole Nursey has leaned himself against.

Dex pulls in on himself as more and more people continue to file into the train car, grabbing seats and poles around him. It’s not that Dex has a problem with strangers bumping into him. If that were the case, he wouldn’t be a hockey player. But the sheer amount of people on the subway car has him unsettled, and he can’t stop being hyper aware of the shirt sleeves that aren’t his rubbing against his arm, or the jeans of the girl standing behind him that brush up against the back of his calf every couple of seconds. He’s not panicking, really. It’s just… he’s not exactly “chill” at the moment.

He jumps a little when Nursey slides a hand up his arm and then gentle as anything pulls on him until he’s switched places with him so that Dex is now on the inside, closer to seats and windows than standing right in the middle of the train.

“The car can stop quick, it’s probably better that you can brace yourself on a seat back too. Just in case.”

Dex realizes Nursey is giving him an out of explaining why he seems so jumpy and nervous. Even if he doesn’t know what he’s giving him an out for. Dex takes it gratefully, with a chirp for good measure, “are you sure I’m the one who needs it? Mr. trips-over-air?”

Nursey laughs, “Chyeah! Listen I am a hardened New Yorker and avid supporter of the subway. Train stops have nothing on me now Poindexter. I’m like invincible here.”

Dex just scoffs a little under his breath, but a smile is still tugging on his lips and when he looks at Nursey, who looks totally find being pressed between four different people, he grins back at him. Dex’s stomach does something funny in that moment, and it only takes him a few seconds to realize that he is totally fucked. That this whole trip, no matter how terrible his summer in Main was going, was a terrible idea. Because the move Nursey pulled earlier, stepping away from the edge as the train was coming in wasn’t a teenage romcom movie, but this totally was.

***

When they get off the train and walk out of the subway station and onto the street again, Dex is still having his internal freak out about the fact that he can’t stop thinking about about how he’s thinking about Nursey in a romantic way. Either Dex is pathetic and this is the result of him not having gone on a single date the whole last year of school or its because… well he knows what it’s because of. The stupid crush he’s held for Nursey since he saw him on the taddy tour. Which is also equally as pathetic as not having gone on a single date this past year.

He only realizes that Nursey has been talking to him the entire time they’ve been walking to wherever it is they’re going because when he stops abruptly, still talking, Dex nearly runs smack into him. Derek looks at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Walk much, Poindexter?” Any other time Dex might have yelled back that Nursey trips over air so he has no room to talk, but he’s still completely fazed by his revelation from earlier that he can’t even get a chirp in edgewise.

“Uh, yeah I’m cool.”

Nursey just continues looking at him like he’s the most confusing thing he’s ever had to ponder about, but just shrugs, “Alright, cool. You ready to go in?”

Dex looks up for the first time and sees that they’re stopped in front of a large building made of some kind of reflective metal. He sees the metal letters that read Brooklyn Botanic Gardens attached to the front of the building immediately after that that. There’s some kind of pattern ingrained into the front of the building that Dex realizes pretty quickly are leaves and vines.

Dex nods his affirmative at Nursey’s question and watches as Nursey walks up to the window and talks to the attendant there for a moment before coming back to Dex, “okay we’re all good.”

Dex nods his head at the tickets, “What do I owe you for my ticket?”

Nursey scoffs, “Uh nothing dude, I invited you to New York remember? Besides we’re members so no biggie. Now let’s go see some fucking sweet ass plants.”

Dex laughs a little at Nursey’s enthusiasm and follows him past the entrance and into the gardens. Nursey grabs a map and unfolds it before holding it out in front of Dex, “Okay where do you want to start?”

Dex feels like this has got to be the worst day of his life because he still can’t form a whole sentence to save his life. So he just looks at the map and finds the first thing that pops out at him, “the Orchid collection?”

“Good choice, alright let’s go.” Nursey folds the map up which tells Dex he probably knows his way around the gardens pretty well and he expresses as much as they start off towards the Orchids and Aquatic house, “yeah man I come here all the time in the summer when I just need to find a place to chill, ya know?”

Dex things he’s having heart palpitations because when Nursey turns to smile at him, his chest constricts in a way that he can’t describe at all. See the thing is, he’s known about his crush on Nurse since he first saw him. He’s never tried to deny it to himself so much as just try to forget about it as much as he could. Which somehow manifested itself into arguing with Nursey 24/7 which wasn’t productive in the least.

Dex isn’t sure he’s going to make it through the rest of the day, or even the rest of the Gardens if he doesn’t get his shit together right this second, “hey uh, I’m going to use the restroom real quick.” Dex points over to a restroom sign across the path they’re standing on.

“Yeah, that’s chill man. I’ll wait here for you.” Nursey takes a seat on a bench along the path and pulls his phone out while Dex makes a beeline to the restroom.

Once he’s in he bends down to make sure no one else is in any of the stalls and quickly sits himself in one, locking the stall door behind him before pulling his phone out. It rings three times before it’s picked up.

“Dex? Are you okay?”

“Remember when I told you last year I was maybe a little like… uh… with Nursey or whatever?”

Dex hears Bitty sigh on the other side of the phone, “You mean when you told me you were hopelessly head over heels for that boy?”

“Okay that’s not what I said, but you know what it doesn’t matter right now. I’m having an issue Bitty.”

“Oh no, are y’all fighting already? You’ve only been there for a day haven’t you?”

“We’re not fighting Bitty, we’re like… the opposite of fighting.”

“Explain.”

Dex goes on to tell Bitty everything that’s happened since Dex has arrived in New York, which admittedly isn’t much, but it’s enough. After he gets through the part about the train and how Derek had positioned himself in between Dex and the people on the train because he could tell he was uncomfortable he hears Bitty sigh again, but this time it’s one of those wistful happy sighs.

“What? Why are you sighing like that?” Dex asks.

“It’s just… that’s so sweet honey.”

“That’s all you’ve got for me, Bitty! I literally don’t know what to do.”

“It sounds to me like you don’t have to do anything at all hon, just keep hanging out, maybe confess to the boy. It’s not as hard as you think it might be. Sounds like he wouldn’t mind too.”

“Just confess to the boy? Bitty how long did it take you to say anything to Jack?”

Dex hears a click and then a dial tone that lets him know Bitty has hung up on him. He gets a text almost as soon as he lowers his phone though from Bitty that says ‘Get your head out of your butt mister’ and then a string of cat faced kiss emojis. Dex just sighs, and pockets his phone. He’s been in the bathroom for nearly ten minutes. He needs to get out of there before Derek comes looking for him, probably with a lame joke about wondering if he fell into a toilet.

Derek is sitting right where Dex left him though, sitting on the bench. He has his phone up to his ear though, talking to someone. Derek is always animated when he talks but Dex can see whatever it is he’s talking about right now has got him worked up in some way. The hand that isn’t holding his phone is waving around while he’s talking. When Derek looks up and sees Dex walking back towards him he says one last thing to whoever he’s talking to and then hangs up his phone and pocketing it.

“What’d you do fall into the toilet?” Derek asks with a smile as he stands up when Dex approaches.

Dex scoffs, “yeah that’s exactly what I did.”

“That’s too bad, your stink is going to make the Orchids die as soon as we step in.”

“Yeah if they don’t die from hearing you say ‘chill’ eight times first.”

Derek throws his head back and laughs, and Dex knows that this week isn’t going to end without him making a fool of himself and he is absolutely fucked.

***

The rest of the botanical garden visit goes well in spite of Dex’s constant worry. He lets Derek pull him around all over the rest of the curated gardens. He played tour guide, pointing out his favorite spots to sit and read, his favorite plants, and dragged Dex over to a pond with fish in it because ‘you like fish and all that stuff right?’

On the way home Derek drags him into some little hole in the wall pizza place that he swears makes the best pizza. The slices are huge and thin, and floppy enough that Dex has to fold it before he shoves it into his mouth. He does admit that its some of the best pizza he’s ever eaten in his life, but he doesn’t want Derek to get more pretentious about anything that comes from New York so he shuts his mouth and says ‘it’s okay’ instead with a shit eating grin on his face.

When they get back to Derek’s place the sky was already dark with just the slightest hints of gray on the edges of the sky. Derek’s mom was sitting at the island in their kitchen, sipping from a mug and leafing through a stack of papers almost disinterestedly. She was dressed in matching white silk pj pants and shirt and her hair was pulled back and folded under a red and green silk scarf with intricate looping designs on it. She looked as effortlessly graceful sitting there with her legs crossed, leaning over the island as she had that morning in her jumpsuit and heels.

Derek made his way over to her and hugged her, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek at the same time, “How was your boys’ afternoon out?”

“It was good, I took Will to the Botanical Garden and then we kind of meandered through the city for a little bit before we grabbed some pizza and came home.”

“Sounds like you had fun. Was my son polite William?”

Dex snorted, but he was smiling the whole time, “he was the picture of perfect manners Mrs. Nurse.”

Veronica smiled widely at him, the same smile Derek had been sending his way all day, the same smile that always through Dex for a loop and made him pause for a moment before he could get his brain working again, “we are talking about the same Derek right?”

“Mom! I was absolutely the best damn New York host anyone could ever hope for.”

“Don’t lie to your mother Nursey it isn’t right. He told me I was going to kill all the orchids at the gardens with my stench.”

“Because you fell into the toilets!”

“I didn’t actually fall into the toilet Nursey, it’s like a figure of speech.”

“Okay well then why were you in there for like ten minutes. Who has to use the restroom for ten minutes?”

“Some people!”

Veronica rolled her eyes at the two of them before shuffling her papers together. She placed her mug in the sink and walked back over to the boys, giving Dex a quick pat on his shoulder and Derek another peck on the cheek, “you boys have fun, don’t stay up too late doing whatever it is you’re doing now.”

“Night Mom!” Derek called.

“Night Mrs. Nurse.” Dex called as she left the kitchen.

As soon as she was out of the kitchen Derek turned to Dex, “I cannot believe you told my mom I said your stench was going to kill flowers.” He laughed.

“You did! You literally said that!”

Derek turned and started heading out of the kitchen, motioning for Dex to follow him back to his room where Dex assumed they were going. Once they made it to his room, Nursey flung himself on his bed and toed his shoes off one at a time, letting them hit the floor with a loud thunk. Dex wasn’t sure where to sit, on the bed beside Derek seemed to intimate, so he chose the desk chair instead.

Derek scoots up on his bed so that he’s lounging against the headboard and looks at Dex, “So, how was your first day of the New York experience?”

Dex thinks about it for a second, whether he wants to rile up Derek with a fake answer something like a simple, ‘it was okay’ but he decides to save that for a later time when he’s not so exhausted, “you better not repeat this to anyone, but it was a lot more ‘chill’ than I expected it to be.”

Nursey lit up, “Yeah? S’awesome.” He grins at Dex a little, “I am absolutely telling everyone you said that by the way, I don’t make the rules that’s just how it is.”

Dex scoffs, “I can’t tell you anything can I?”

Nursey gets quiet for a moment, and Dex can feel the mood shift from teasing and friendly D-man banter to something serious. Nursey picks at the bottom of his shirt for a second, his lips moving back and forth like he’s biting the inside of his lip. Dex can feel his heart rate pick up a little and the free fall feeling you get in your stomach after going down a hill on a roller coaster is settling in the pit of his stomach. It feels like the beginning of one of those “we need to talk” conversations, and he hates it.

“Did you uh… well if you wanted to like… I guess if you felt like it you could um.” This is the most incoherent Dex has ever heard Derek in his life and it’s putting him more on edge.

“I could what, Nurse?” Dex asks quietly, not trying to sound accusatory like he normally does.

“You could tell me why you needed to come ‘chill’ in New York if you wanted.” Derek finishes, he’s looking everywhere but at Dex.

Dex thinks about it for a moment and decides that in this case honesty is the best policy, “I… I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s cool man. Yeah, cool, cool, cool.” Nursey keeps repeating the phrase over and over like a mantra.

Dex doesn’t know what else to do. The atmosphere has gone from playful to awkward. Dex glances at the clock a couple of times and Nursey must catch him doing it because he yawns loudly. Dex isn’t sure if it’s for his sake or if Derek could feel the awkwardness multiplying and is trying to get out of the situation as well as he can. Dex supposes Nursey started the exit from the situation with the yawn, so he can follow through.

“Well I’m tired, it’s been a long day, lot of walking. So I think I’m going to hit the hay.”

“Yeah of course bro, you remember your way to the guest room right?”

Dex nods, “Yeah. I got it. Thanks man.”

Nursey just gives Dex a little two finger salute before turning his back on him to rifle through a drawer in his dresser, most likely to find pajamas of some kind. Dex leaves him to it and walks across the hall to the guest room. He had left the hockey bag he stuffed with his clothes and toiletries on the bed earlier. He unzips it, grabs out his own pair of pajamas and quickly pulls them on. He folds the clothes he had been wearing that day and sets them in a neat pile on a sort of chaise lounge looking thing at the foot of the bed. There’s a bath towel, washcloth, and an extra pillow already sitting on it, Veronica probably set some stuff out for him when she got back from work. Dex smiles thinking about it.

There’s an attached bathroom to the guest room so Dex pops in real quick to brush his teeth and clean his face before he makes it back into the room and pulls the covers back on the bed. They’re the heavy kind, filled with goose feathers or something else equally as luxurious. When he slides underneath them, the weight of the comforter relaxes him in a way he didn’t realize he needed until it was happening. Dex is normally quick to sleep, had to be when you lived in a house with so many other people. Getting to sleep fast sometimes meant the difference between sleeping through the night or being up until 4 am and being grumpy the entirety of the next day.

Except for some reason Dex can’t fall asleep, he’s been laying there for an hour, the clock on the bedside table says it’s already midnight. If he doesn’t fall asleep in the next hour he’s not going to. With a frustrated groan Dex flings the covers off of himself and let’s his feet hit the cold ground. He tries to walk as quietly as he can past Veronica and Derek’s rooms so he doesn’t wake them. Hopefully there’s some tea in the cupboard he saw all the coffee in earlier. He doesn’t want to go looking through the Nurse’s kitchen, but tea always calms him and he thinks Derek would rather lose a teabag than have Dex be all grumpy. Besides, Veronica had told him to make himself at home and he thinks maybe this counts.

He’s looking forward to some quiet time alone, drinking a hot mug of tea. Except Veronica is already at the kitchen island, reading through a book with a mug of something of her own sitting in front of her. Dex freezes in his tracks, unprepared to having to talk to anyone. He must make some sort of noise when he tries to turn around and go back to laying in bed because Veronica looks up and smiles at him.

“William? What are you doing up?”

“I uh… I couldn’t sleep so I thought… I thought I might come down for a glass of water or something?”

“Here, sit down,” Veronica gets out of her seat and pulls the other stool out from under the island counter for him to sit in, “I’m drinking some chamomile right now, do you like tea?”

Dex just nods his head, then realizes he’s being a little rude before adding, “yes please. Thank you Mrs. Nurse.”

Veronica just smiles again, “Der never told me you were so polite.”

“I’m sure he told you I was the absolute worst.” Dex smiles, wanting her to know he’s only teasing.

Veronica pulls a mug down and pours steaming tea from the electric kettle on the counter into it before she hands it over the counter to Dex. Dex takes the tea with another quiet thank you, and blows on it before taking a sip. It’s already a little sweet, from honey, Will thinks. It tastes wonderful. Veronica is leaning on the other side of the island now, across from Dex, her head being held up by her closed fist.

“Maybe a little, in the beginning. Derek is an easy going person, but once he makes up his mind the boy is as stubborn as I am. First impressions tend to last with him.”

Dex thinks about the way she’s wording it, helpfully giving him an out. A way he can say something like ‘oh yeah we got off on the wrong foot, just a misunderstanding.’ but that wouldn’t be correct. It was way more than that. Dex fiddles with the handle of his mug for a couple of moments before taking another sip. He lets it settle in his stomach, hoping the warmth of the tea will give him comfort and the strength to admit his short comings.

“It wasn’t just first impressions. I… I wasn’t really fair to Derek for a long time after we met. I let first impressions last a lot longer than he did and… well… it really isn’t a bad first impression if it’s not just the first time is it?”

Veronica gives him a considering look. Like she isn’t sure whether she wants to ask him to elaborate or not. But Dex gets the feeling that Derek talks to his mom about everything, so he wouldn’t be surprised if she already knew exactly what he was referring to. It’s the knowledge that she probably already knows a lot, if not all, about his and Derek’s first year fights, their bickering from freshman year, that let’s him feel comfortable sharing more than he’d normally be comfortable letting go of.

So he continues, “I assumed a lot about him… I… I thought just because he had money he was lucky or something, or somehow didn’t have problems or anything.” Dex looks down at the tea in his mug the amber liquid moving gently around. Mrs. Nurse would probably hate him now, who wants to hear about another person being mean to their only child.

“And now?” She asks, startling Dex out of his inner monologue.

“Now?”

“Do you think the same things now that you did when you first met him?”

Dex doesn’t have to think about it at all, he knows the answer immediately, “No. I don’t. Except that he’s still really lucky in the technical sense? Has he told you how many weird campus competitions and call in contests he’s won? He found money on the ground on campus like four days in a row last month.”

Veronica laughs at that, “Derek has always had at least that kind of luck, even when he was little. We once went to Disney, and Derek wanted so badly to ride the Haunted Mansion, but there was a line of what felt about a thousand people long. Anyways, something broke down in the ride or they had to do something or other and everyone, and I mean everyone, left the line to go wait for something else. Derek begged to stay in line a little bit longer so we did. Next thing you know, it hadn’t even been five minutes before the ride was back up and we were first to get on.” She smiles at the story, obviously a happy memory the two of them share.

“That sounds exactly like him,” Dex scoffs, but it’s more of a laugh than anything, “I’ll have to chirp him about it later.”

“I’m sure the other boys will enjoy some more material hm?” She pauses for a moment, looking into her own mug before looking up again, “my point being William, Derek has luck… but he isn’t a lucky person. No one is I think. Some things are hard to forget. Some actions, some words, but not everything is impossible to forgive or move on from. Especially if you work towards not being the type of person who does or says those things.”

Dex feels his throat get tight. It’s not chastisement or disappointment that’s coming from Veronica. Dex has heard that from his own parents plenty to know that this is something coming from a place of love. Some how it feels worse than if someone were yelling at him. Makes his mistakes from that first year and a half feel more real, more terrible than they did before. At the same time though, Veronica’s words have made him feel more hopeful about his and Derek’s relationship, even if they weren’t meant to. They make him feel like he can be a better person, that he can keep getting better.

“Thank you,” Dex says quietly, “for uh… the tea. And for talking to me too.”

Veronica reaches over the island and takes his hand, squeezing it gently. Hers is small and delicate compared to his, “I’m not here to justify anything you’ve said or done William. Especially to my son. But Derek used to speak about you in a certain way when you first met and… well now you’re spending a week of summer vacation in our home. That’s all you need to know.” Veronica pats the top of his hand before pulling away and putting her mug in the sink. She says goodnight to Will quietly, tells him she hopes he sleeps well, and then heads up to her room.

Will sits there for a little while longer, it’s almost 12:45 now, before he goes up to the guest room. The conversation has soothed a little of his anxiety, the tea his restlessness. He doesn’t fall asleep until nearly three.

* * *

It was nearing the end of day five of Will being in New York and so far Nursey has taken him to the Botanical Gardens, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, The theater district, and the Met. Of which they didn’t even go inside to look at any art work.

“It’s a historical landmark Dex.”

“I know that! But isn’t the art the whole point?”

“Nah man, I mean this is where Blair Waldorf sat and ate lunch like every day.”

“Are you… are you talking about Gossip girl?”

With the end of the fifth day of his trip to New York getting closer and closer, Will was starting to feel himself getting more and more antsy. His conversation with Veronica hadn’t been off-putting (well a little, but who wants to hear about their mistakes even when they can admit they’ve committed them) but it had somehow made him feel more and more anxious about his… whatever it was he felt for Derek. Okay he was still lying to himself a little bit. He knew exactly what it was he felt about Derek, but saying it, even to himself in his head made it a little too real and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

Dex figured he was doomed to keep going on and on and on with this aching crush he had without anything happening. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to be able to tell Derek about it. What was the point really? Derek was beautiful, he was effervescent. He had options. Dex was… well Dex was the asshole who never wanted to admit when he was wrong even when he was really really wrong. Even if he wasn’t that person anymore, it was still hard to shake that image of himself, so he wasn’t sure if Derek could ever do it either. He wouldn’t have blamed him if he couldn’t.

“Uh earth to Poindexter?” Dex registered the hand waiving in front of his face suddenly enough that he startled a little bit at the motion.

“What?”

Nursey looked at him, his eyebrows knitting together in a confused line, “I’ve been asking you what bougie New York cuisine you want to try now? We’ve had late night pizza, sushi, hot dog stand hot dogs. There anything else you want to try?”

“Uh… maybe a food truck?” Dex shrugged. He had seen dozens of them since he had been in New York. They’d tried one for lunch once on the third day and Dex wouldn’t have minded trying it again.

“Yeah man, that sounds good. I know this really awesome one that’s always like two blocks over. They serve some pretty wicked Pho.” Derek grabbed Dex’s elbow and led him in the opposite direction they had been walking in.

It only took a few long strides for the hand to slip from his elbow and down his arm. Dex thought he might have imagined it, but it felt like Derek had curled his fingers around the end of his sleeve for just a moment before letting go. Dex had wanted him to, had wanted him to maybe curl his fingers around his hand instead. Dex could reach out right now and do the same, he knew Derek would only look back at him, smile, and say something nonchalant and somehow infuriating like, “Awe bro, you do care!” And Dex could call it an accident, could say he thought Derek was about to walk into the road and he was trying to pull him back onto the sidewalk. He could do it. But he wouldn’t, because he was a coward, and he knew that better about himself than anything else.

When they got to the Pho truck, Nursey dragged him to the signs posted on the opposite side that had their menu items listed. Derek was listing off the options, “this one always seems like way more salty than the other ones if you like that. They use pork in that one and chicken in that one so you can always chose which you like more. I always get the chicken, but sometimes I like to spice up my life with the pork you know?” Derek looked back at him and must have seen the same vacant expression he saw just half an hour ago on Dex’s face again. He’d been wearing that expression a lot in the past four days.

“Just uh… order me whatever you like the most. I trust your judgment on this one.”

“Okay now I know something is wrong. Since when do you eat literally anything I like?” 

“Those peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches are disgusting and you know it!” 

“They are the height of fine dining and your taste buds are totally out of whack dude. Just because you haven’t tasted like… real spices until you came to Samwell doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me.”

“Those things have literally no spices and no seasoning Derek, what are you talking about?”

Nursey pauses for a moment, and Dex realizes that he used his name. Which wouldn’t be so odd if he was doing it for comedic effect or something else. He and Derek called each other by their first names all the time when they were trying to be mock serious. But this was playful banter. This was something they liked doing all the time, and Dex had never called him anything but Nurse or Nursey during times like this.

“That’s new.” Derek didn’t look upset, or like he thought it meant more than it really did, but he did look curious.

“Sorry, I’ve just been hearing your mom say it all week and it caught on. I’ll never refer to you by your actual name ever again, promise.” Dex said rolling his eyes, hoping that this was a good enough excuse. That he wouldn’t realize that Dex hadn’t thought of him as Nurse or Nursey in a while, but as Derek.

“Nah, it’s chill. I like it.” Derek shrugged nonchalantly as he shoved a forkful of noodles into his mouth.

Dex felt himself practically short circuit at that. He wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t somehow make his whole deal about Derek 100% completely obvious. So he decided to go with nothing, just a noncommittal grunt that didn’t give his opinion on the matter one way or the other. He watched as Nursey continued to shove forkfuls of noodles, vegetables, and pork into his mouth and even though he had had his ‘Oh, shit’ moment way before now, he felt like he was having it all over again. Because even when he was shoving food into his mouth, dropping most of it on his shirt or the table he was the most beautiful thing Dex had ever seen.

Derek looked up in that moment and saw Dex staring at him, “what? Do I have something on my face?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Chill. So, I’m thinking-”

“That’s new.”

“Super rude bro. Anyways, I was was saying since this is your last night in New York we should do something like super awesome. Like the total New York experience. Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?” Dex asked seriously, crossing his arms and leaning over the table.

“Yes. We can go wherever you want? I know a lot of cool clubs that aren’t too like overwhelming. The night is young, and we’re not getting any younger so might as well make the most of it, right?” Derek grins at him, the same one Dex sees at Kegsters.

“Can we go home?” And he won’t admit it, but it startles him a little that he refers to Derek’s house as home so easily.

“Go home? Are you sure that’s what you want to do? There’s like a hella lot to do here. I’ll even give you like ten minutes to research.”

“You said whatever I want. And what I want is to go home, grab as many blankets from every bed in your house, make an absolute mountain of popcorn, and watch as many of the Mighty Ducks movies as we can before we fall asleep on the floor of your living room like we’re 9 years old.”

Derek looks at him for a moment, considering. Like he isn’t sure what he heard was something that Dex would have actually ever said. But he relents, “yeah, let’s go home.”

* * *

The rest of the night passed pretty quietly. The two of them had grabbed every blanket they could find that wasn’t in Derek’s dad and mom’s room and threw them in the middle of the living room floor. Veronica had made the popcorn for them once she heard what their plan was. Nursey had dug through the DVD stash he had in his bedroom closet and pulled out all three Mighty Ducks and popped the first one into the Blu Ray player.

They were wrapped up in the blankets, nothing visible but their faces and necks, and their hands where they were holding the blankets around themselves as tightly as possible. There were two bowls of popcorn on the floor, one for each of them. They had only started the movie not even half an hour ago before Derek and he were fighting about some part of it.

“Who even thought it was a good idea for him to be around kids in the first place?” Derek asked waving a hand at the TV as Coach Bombay had his car parked on the ice the kids were playing hockey on.

“It’s a movie Nursey, It doesn’t have to make sense.” Dex rolled his eyes, but a smile was tugging on the corners of his lips.

“Hey, that’s my line!” Derek smiled at him from under his mound of blankets, “besides I’m surprised that you’re not the one yelling about the ridiculousness of this movie.”

Dex hums quietly, “I never got to watch it as a kid, so I’m enjoying it now without the cynicism. Thought you might be proud of that.”

“You never got to watch it as a kid? Wait, was the first time you had ever seen it at the Haus frog year?” Nursey looks shocked, “how have you never seen this movie before that? Dex, William, Billy. This was the apex of movies for kids obsessed with hockey.”

Dex just shrugs his shoulders, “We didn’t have a television until I was 8 or 9 and the movie had been out for a while by then.”

Nursey is quiet, considering for a moment before he reaches over and grabs a handful of Dex’s popcorn since he’s already eaten his own. Dex lets him, he supposes that’s how their relationship is going to be this week. Maybe it’ll change when they go back to the Haus and they’ll be back to bickering every chance they get.

“I guess we’re just going to have to watch it like once a week when we get back to the Haus so we can get you caught up to the rest of us.” Derek gives him a grin before shoving the handful of popcorn in his mouth and turning back to the movie.

Dex spends the rest of the movie trying not to preemptively miss his trip before it even ends, but its hard. This is the most at ease he’s felt since the end of the school year, and he isn’t sure how he’s going to go back home to what’s awaiting him after having experienced a genuinely relaxing time in New York. But it’s hard not to get sad about it. Especially since they’re now only half way through the second Mighty Ducks and Nursey looks like he’s going to face plant on the carpet in his living room because he’s falling asleep.

“Hey,” Dex knocks his shoulder into him, “we should go to sleep, yeah?”

Nursey jolts awake, almost upturning the bowl of popcorn in front of him, some of the kernels close to spreading over the carpet, “what?”

 

“Sleep? We should do that? Especially since my plane leaves pretty early tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Derek sounds like he’s forgotten all about that, “yeah we should do that.”

The two of them turn the TV and the DVD off, grab their popcorn bowls and rinse them out in the sink, arrange all the throw pillows back on the couch the way they had been before, and folded blankets back up for the linen closet before they made their way back up to Derek’s bedroom to deposit the blankets back on his bed.

The quiet that follows them into Derek’s room though is unnerving and Dex isn’t sure if he should say ‘well see you, night’ now or wait until Derek says something. The blankets are spread back over Derek’s enormous bed, but he’s just standing there, his back to Dex, quiet and unmoving. It’s starting to make Dex a little worried so he decides that this is probably the moment to break the silence, but Derek beats him to it.

“You should just stay in here tonight.” Derek says casually, turning around to face Dex. He has a strange look on his face that he can’t quite place.

“Why would I do that?”

Derek is undeterred, “because my bed is huge and way more comfortable than the guest room. Plus we can stay up and gossip all night like you always hear people talk about when they mention sleep overs.”

Dex should say no. Dex should say that this isn’t a sleepover and they aren’t kids anymore and he doesn’t care how big Derek’s bed is when he has one of his own to sleep in but this is his last night in New York. His last night with Derek until he has to spend two and a half more months in Maine trying to make it through the summer and back to Samwell. So instead he says yes, and the smile that forms over Derek’s face make him feel a lot better about his choice.

“S’awesome. We’ll have to tell Chowder he missed our super awesome sleepover when we get back to Samwell.” Derek teases as he throws the blankets back and slips underneath them, Dex doing the same thing on his designated side of the bed.

“Oh yeah, let’s just crush his soul. He’s probably going to wonder why we didn’t Face Time him.”

Derek snorts, “we could Face Time him. I bet he would love that.”

Eventually their teasing of Chowder dies out and the two of them are laying quietly in the bed on their backs, blankets pulled up to their chests, side by side. Dex thinks that this should feel more awkward than it actually does. That his big obvious crush should make his heart beat fast in his chest, but honestly he feels more at ease now in this moment than he has in the last handful of years in his life. The silence also gives him time to think about the fact that he hasn’t talked to Derek about the conversation he had with Veronica

He’s not sure why, but the silence is giving him the confidence to say something, “I talked to your mom the first night I was here.”

“Uh Dex, you talked to my mom about eighty times the first day you were here.”

“No I mean after you had gone to bed. I couldn’t sleep and I went downstairs to get some tea-”

“You hate tea.”

“I couldn’t sleep. Anyways your mom was already down there-”

“Yeah she’s a night owl.”

“God you’re annoying would you let me finish?”

“Sorry, keep talking about your late night rendezvous with my mom.” Derek grins elbowing Dex playfully.

“Anyways she was already down there and we talked about us.”

“You and my mom talked about you and my mom?”

“Are you… are you trying to purposefully be obstinate right now? I can’t tell.”

“Okay for realsies, I will be 100 percent quiet this time.”

Dex wishes he had it in him to comment on the fact that Derek just used the word ‘realsies’ without irony but it would completely derail the conversation if he did so he ignored it, “no. We talked about us. You and me, us.”

Dex waited for Derek to say something else about the conversation but he just asked a quiet, “what about us, Dex?”

Dex swallowed hard. This wasn’t as easy as he thought it was going to be. He turned over on his side, tucking his arm underneath his head on the pillow, facing Derek, “I wasn’t fair to you. That first year and we knew each other and even a little bit after that I… I said and did some things that weren’t fair to you.”

“Dex-” and Dex isn’t sure what Derek is about to say but he needs to get this all out in one go otherwise he doesn’t know when the next time he’s going to be able to say it is.

“I’m still not… not good about some things Derek. I stick my foot in my mouth more often than not, and I don’t react well to things I don’t understand sometimes. And I’m… I’m trying to do better. I’m trying to be better but I don’t know if that’s enough.”

“And you and my mom talked about this?” Derek asks hesitantly, like there’s another question he means to ask but doesn’t know how.

“Yeah.” Dex says quietly, not sure what else to say.

“Do you know why I used to get mad at you so much our Freshman year?”

Dex scoffs a little bit, “I can guess.”

“It was because when I saw you, I saw the stereotypical white guy who complained about things that weren’t unattainable,” Dex doesn’t think Derek is done so he stays quiet, “I didn’t realize back then… how much the uh… the...”

“It’s okay Nursey, you can say you didn’t realize how poor I was, it’s the truth.”

Derek snorts, “okay yeah, I didn’t realize how much money could matter to people when it was something they’d never had before. I didn’t understand that on a personal level, and I’m sorry that I could be really cavalier about it but...” and he takes a big heaving sigh, “I can’t… I can’t change what I am. And I know. I know it’s not as easy for you as me saying you can get a job that pays well. But I can never change who I am, how people see me. It’s something that I wear every day, it’s something that I take with me wherever I go. And I’m not ashamed Dex. I’m proud of who I am, of my family, of my culture and heritage. If given the chance I wouldn’t fucking change it but-”

“But you can’t help who you are and I… there’s always a chance that I can.”

Nursey turns on his side too, so he’s mirroring Dex, arm under his head facing him, “I think… I think it’s more complicated than that, but yeah in the simplest fucking terms, yeah.”

The two of them are laying in the bed, quietly, saying absolutely nothing just soaking in each other’s presence until Derek reaches over with the hand that isn’t under his head and grasps Dex’s hand in his own. So now they’re laying, closer than before, somehow scooting incrementally closer together in the short time they’ve been talking, with their hands clasped together. Dex can feel the warm huff of Derek’s breath on his neck, but he doesn’t do much to move away from it.

“Hey Will?” Derek asks quietly as their still watching each other in the darkness of the room.

“Yeah?”

“This really is like a real sleepover now. We really should Face Time Chowder.”

Dex can’t help it, he let’s out the biggest snort he thinks he’s ever made before. But he squeezes Derek’s hand a little tighter before falling asleep with hands still clasped.

* * *

The see off at the airport couldn’t be described in any other way than tense, Derek thinks. Not in a someone is going to explode with anger type of tense but… he and Will had had a moment last night. Like the kind of moment that people bring up when they’re asked, ‘when did you know you were in lo...’ well Derek isn’t going to think about that word. Not until he’s had a good forty weeks to think about it, give or take a whole year.

They’re standing at the entrance for airport security, the furthest Derek can go without having to buy a ticket himself. Will is scuffing his shoe against the shiny tile of the airport and looking anywhere but at Derek. Derek thinks his sudden embarrassment might be a product of the way they woke up this morning. Dex had somehow scooted down in the night so his face was nearly pressed up against Derek’s sternum. Derek’s arm had been thrown over his shoulders.

Derek had laid awake for a few moments, watching the sunshine stream in from the crack in his curtains and blanket itself over Dex’s shoulders, his neck, and his face. And Derek can’t stand clichés, he has to listen to the same ones over and over in every single Writing course he takes at Samwell. But there is no other way to describe the way that Dex looks than glowing. His red hair was catching the golden morning light and… and if he keeps thinking about it he’s going to go crazy.

Dex had woken up, made some kind of grumpy waking up noise, detached himself from Derek and went to shower. No pomp, no circumstance. Like he was used to it, like it happened every day. Derek had waited his turn and gotten into the shower, the two of them had eaten a breakfast his mom must have spent at least an hour making and was definitely not what he should be eating this close to the season starting, and then they had set off to the airport and… well that was that.

“So I’ll… I’ll see you in about a month yeah? When school starts?” Nursey asked quietly.

“Yeah… in a month,” Will leans forward like he’s going in for a hug, but he’s looking at Derek’s lips and he isn’t sure what that means, maybe he’s going in for something else.

And Derek almost lets his eyes flutter a little bit, almost leans into it. But this isn’t an early 2000’s Jennifer Garner romantic comedy, and Dex isn’t Mark Ruffalo so he stops himself from acting like an idiot and stays still. Dex doesn’t lean all the way in anyways, just clasps his hand over Derek’s shoulder like some kind of middle aged dad move and hefts his duffle bag over his shoulder before walking towards the security line.

Derek is about to turn around and head back out the airport when Will stops walking and turns around. Derek thinks maybe this is going to turn out like a romantic comedy after all expect maybe not of the Jennifer Garner 13 Going on 30 kind but The Terminal kind instead. But Will doesn’t drop his duffle and run to Derek to confess his undying love. Instead he turns and says three words. Just three simple words before disappearing into the security line.

* * *

“Stay lucky, Derek?” Chowder’s voice is confused as he repeats it.

“That’s what I just said!” Derek groans, flopped out over his bed, burying his face in the pillow Will had used last night like some pathetic person he doesn’t recognize.

“I just… what did he mean by that?”

“I thought you might know?” Derek sighed, flopping over so he could stare at the ceiling instead.

“Sorry, as much as I speak Dex as a language, I can’t translate that one.”

* * *

“….But what did you mean by that exactly?” Bitty’s voice is the quiet kind that he gets when he’s trying not to tell you he thinks you’re being an idiot, but you’re being an idiot.

“I… I don’t know what I meant…”

“Well, what were you thinking when you said it?”

Dex can feel his face warm up, “I have no clue Bits. I don’t know.”

“Do you mind if… well Dex honey, Jack is here is it okay if I tell him? Maybe he has a suggestion?”

“Yeah go ahead, can’t get worse than it already is.”

Dex can hear a bit of rustling on the other line and then a click and he realizes he’s been put on speaker phone.

“Okay hon’ explain it again.”

Dex rubs his hand over his face and thanks all that is good in the universe that he’s down by the docks where no one in his family can hear him having a crisis, “I turned around at the last possible moment in the airport where I could talk to him and I meant to say something I don’t know… suave? And instead all that came out was ‘Stay lucky, Derek.”

There’s a small quiet pause on the other line and Dex can feel his mood lifted, Jack must have some kind of wisdom to impart, but instead what he gets is, “that’s rough, bud.”

* * *

When Dex gets back to the Haus he’s the first one to get there. Or at least he’s the first one to get there who actually still goes to Samwell. Bitty is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking something out of a mug with his laptop out in front of him. The scene is so familiar to Dex that he forgets for a moment that he’s not a frog anymore and Bitty isn’t the mothering sophomore who tried to take care of him his freshman year. The massive wave of nostalgia and a feeling of loss hit Dex hard, but he throws his stuff down and sits in the chair opposite of Bitty.

Bitty closes his laptop and sets the mug aside, “well, seeing as how the three of you were talkin’ up a storm about when you’d all be back this week before the semester started I figured I’d come and intercept you before anyone else got in the way.”

“Got in the way?” Dex asked.

“Well you’re under the impression that you have some of the worst luck, and I am under the impression that that’s a whole bunch of bullshit,” Dex opens his mouth, about to express the fact that he doesn’t remember the last time he heard Bitty curse, but Bitty just puts up a hand and continues to power through, “the last thing you said to that boy… Will you are worse than Jack and I ever were and that is saying somethin’ so we’re going to sit here and think of something more memorable to say to him, because I want you to be happy.”

Dex gets out of his seat and is pulling Bitty up into a hug which he returns with a quick but firm squeeze of his own, “thank you Bits.”

“Well it’s no problem Will,” there’s a small pause, “plus I don’t know about you but the 1am panic calls are starting to mess with my sleep schedule.” He pulls Dex’s chair closer to his own and pats the seat, “now sit down and let’s scheme!”

* * *

When Derek gets to the Haus for the start of his senior year at Samwell, it seems like everything is happening in the most ideal way. Derek isn’t going to say he feels lucky, this has nothing to do about luck and everything to do with the fact that he has been putting out good vibes to the universe and the universe has seen fit to welcome him open arms.

He hadn’t run into any traffic on the way to Samwell, he had found his favorite mix CD from high school in his center counsel, when he stopped at Starbucks for a caffeine reload the person in front of him had paid for his drink and the barista had made his drink a size bigger than he had ordered it, and to top it all off he had literally pulled into the Haus driveway the same time Chris and Caitlin, who had decided to road trip it to Samwell this year, did. Derek noticed Will’s truck in the driveway as well, although he tried not to think too hard about it.

As soon as Chowder was out of Caitlin’s car he was throwing himself across the Haus lawn and into Derek’s arms as enthusiastically as he always did after a summer away. Derek caught him around the middle and swung him around just a bit before putting him down.

“Let’s not risk injury this close to the season boys!” Caitlin called from where she was popping the trunk of the car.

Derek and Chowder made their way over to the car to help unload what little there was. They had all left most of their stuff in the Haus at the year’s end, “Caitlin, Farms, you’re looking radiant today.”

Caitlin, hair up in a messy bun and jean overalls slightly crooked just flashed Derek a smile, “Always the charmer Der Bear.” Caitlin reached out and wrapped her arms around Derek’s shoulders in a big hug before throwing him a hockey bag.

“You guys got here a day earlier than you meant to, did you leave early?” Derek asked depositing a bag on the porch and going back for another.

“Nah it’s all because of lead foot Cait over here.” Chowder jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where Caitlin was still unloading his bags so she could go drop hers off at the Volleyball house.

“You mean it’s because of drives the speed limit Cait.” Caitlin laughed walking around the boys to kiss Chowder firmly.

“That’s exactly what I meant,” Chowder smiled, leaning in for another quick peck, “okay let’s get these bags off the porch and I can help you unload Nursey.”

Derek grabs one of Chowder’s bags, unlocks the Haus front door and drops the bag right inside. He’s about to turn around and grab another one, but Will is standing not even ten feet away from the front door. Derek would have said something, like ‘hi’ or ‘how was the rest of your summer’, but the look on Will’s face let’s Derek know that he’s about to say something really really important.

“Don’t say anything. I need to get through this before I forget what I wanted to say.” Will says quickly, and Derek looks behind him to where Chowder and Farms should have already walked through the door with more bags but they’re no where to be seen.

“Okay.” Derek says quietly, figuring at least that much is okay.

“I know… I know we were all messing with you about the whole luck thing last year, especially towards the end of it when everyone was badgering you about entering contests,” Derek just nods along not wanting to say anything and ruin the flow of Will’s… speech, “and I thought it was a bunch of… just a bunch of bullshit because I feel like my entire life has been one unlucky turn of events after another. Growing up in Maine, growing up with my family, being paired up with you, having to spend literally every second in your presence.”

“Why are these all about me?” Derek asks, interrupting Will’s… whatever this was.

“I’m getting to that. I thought that being around you all the time was part of being ‘unlucky’ if that sort of thing even ever existed. But… but this past year I’ve realized that I’ve been lucky this entire time, Derek.”

And oh, there’s the first name again, said with intent. Derek feels like this is venturing dangerously into a territory that seems deeply personal, “uh Will, Chow-”

“Wait not yet. Let me just get through this and you can say whatever you want.” Will takes a deep breath and trucks on through it, “I’m lucky Derek. I’m lucky that I had you as a friend this past year, I’m lucky that you wanted me to spend a week with you in New York, I’m lucky that I didn’t decide to go to that stupid state school and I came here instead.”

“Will, Chowder and C-” Derek tries to tell him again that they aren’t alone, but Will is powering through this.

“I’m lucky because I’ve gotten to spend time with you, even the fighting freshmen and sophomore year because I’m a better person now than I was back then.”

Derek doesn’t know what to do. He feels like this is every romantic confession he’s ever read in a book, and unlike every single one at the same time. He can feel his own heartbeat in his chest and he doesn’t know, when the final words come what his response is going to be. He should know what his response is going to be right?

“If I was truly unlucky Derek, I would have never met you. But I’m not. I am maybe the most lucky man to ever come to Samwell because it brought me to you.” Will stands up straighter now, squares his shoulders and Derek knows the next thing he says, there’s no coming back from, “and I… I would be even luckier if you… if you...” Will takes a deep breath, and his posture relaxes all at once, “if you would be my… if you would go out… if you would date me. For a long time…. If that wasn’t clear.”

“I thought this was going to be more like the Terminal.” Derek says, because he just had the last four minutes to think of something good and instead that’s what comes out.

“Like… what.”

“You know! The Tom Hanks movie when he gets stranded in the Terminal because his country ceases to be a country while he’s there!”

“Is that… is there even a romantic component to that movie?”

“I don’t know! I just… I thought you were going to say this at the airport, when you turned around and were acting all dramatic and… I thought that was going to be our moment.”

“I...” Will pauses and Derek can’t tell if he’s thinking about it or if he’s at a loss for words, “I chickened out.”

“Yeah man you chickened out big time. I mean how cool would it have been if you had turned around and dropped your bag and ran back to Derek?” Dex startles and for the first time is aware that they have an audience.

“I swear I was trying to tell you that Chris and Farms were right outside the door.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting back tomorrow?” Dex asks, gaping at the two of them, now shoved into the doorway.

“Well, Chris said he wanted to be here in case your awkward send off at the airport translated into a not so nice reunion so we decided to get here when Derek did.” Caitlin shrugs.

Will bites his bottom lip a little bit, clearly thinking hard about something and if Derek doesn’t look away he isn’t going to be able to make a coherent thought, “just… take a bit to think about it okay?” Will asks and he’s about to turn and take the stairs up to their room.

“Will, wait!” Will pauses at the outburst and waits at the bottom of the steps, “you’re wrong about being lucky,” and Will’s entire face seems to fall at that so Derek pushes on as quickly as he can, “you can’t possibly be the luckiest person.” He continues, taking steps so that he’s within arms reach of Will, “you can’t be because I’ve got to be the luckiest person I know having someone like you care about me.”

He can hear Chowder and Caitlin snickering behind him, probably something about unnecessary dramatics, but he doesn’t care because Will’s entire face has gone pink, and his hands are twitching at his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. So Derek reaches out and grabs one, calms it immediately, before pressing a kiss to its knuckles.

“We really are the luckiest people aren’t we?” Derek asks him, grinning up from over Will’s knuckles.

“Luckiest I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of thanks to the two amazing artists who made art for this story, randomnoteforfuturereference and 4redraws their art was absolutely amazing and I could not be more thankful for what they've created for this story! 
> 
> I also need to thank some of my omgcp discord people for putting up with me while I was writing this. Aceinhyperspace, marchingatmidnight, and punky-peppermint read and reread and then reread again and gave me a lot of encouragement which I am super thankful for!
> 
> And lastly, come say hi to me on tumblr (wjpoindexters) if you want! I'm always up for getting questions


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